


Just a Coffee

by platonicharmonics



Series: We Two Boys Together Clinging [5]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Asthmatic Hosea Matthews, Character Study, Collaboration, Come Swallowing, Declarations Of Love, Demiromantic Dutch van der Linde, Demisexual Hosea Matthews, Dutch Wasn't Always A Manipulative Abuser, Dutch and Hosea are Switches, Dutch van der Linde Has Bipolar 1, Dutch van der Linde Has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Excessive use of native languages, First Time, Flashbacks, Gratuitous French, High Honor Dutch van der Linde, Hopeful Ending, Hosea Matthews has Chronic Pain, Illustrated Fic, Low Honor Hosea Matthews, M/M, Making Love, Old sad men, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Until they Uno Reverse, Young Dutch van der Linde, Young Hosea Matthews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:02:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27036886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platonicharmonics/pseuds/platonicharmonics
Summary: In the dark hollows of Colter, Hosea Matthews sits and stares into a cup of coffee, grieving those dead - as well as a man still living.He wonders, in a moment of profound bitterness, what exactly is stopping him from leaving.He finds his answer......alongside the discovery that he hasn't lost quite so much as he thought.
Relationships: Hosea Matthews/Dutch van der Linde
Series: We Two Boys Together Clinging [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1898260
Comments: 16
Kudos: 56





	Just a Coffee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Disishistory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disishistory/gifts).



> [Slow exhale]
> 
> Howdy~! So. This all started when the astronomically talented, good-hearted, and kind Selene (aka [the-curious-couple-fanart.tumblr.com](https://the-curious-couple-fanart.tumblr.com/)) shared some drop-dead gorgeous art with me alongside a plot outline that her brilliant head came up with, but she didn't feel confidant enough to write it. I tentatively offered to take her outline and run with it, and... I... _ran away with it_ all right... and turned it into this... book. I can only hope with my trembling heart that I did her art justice, for every art you see in this work is drawn by her amazing hands. If y'all are fond of her art, I ecstatically encourage y'all to check out [her Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/Seleneyoshichan) \- she deserves all the support she can get! Thank you for trusting me with this, Selene! This fic is dedicated and gifted to you, you button! ♥
> 
> I would also like to give a fond and adoring dedication to my Star Twin, my sister-from-another-mister, [Disishistory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disishistory), who has been so endlessly supportive and encouraging through all the highs and lows - who not only cheered me on through creating this fic, but who helped support me through a terribly rough patch in my personal life. She also just so happens to be the most gorgeously talented and earnest writer for Dutch and Hosea I know, so I urge all of you to read her soul-stopping series [A Ghost in My Soul (The Fox)](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893745). Caro, you're a button and I love you, and thus I would like to secondly gift this fic to you ♥
> 
> Lastly, this will probably be my last vandermatthews fic for a while, as I intend to fully dedicate myself to my major fic project after this until it's finished. Turns out that writing these two is a great comfort activity while I'm having a horrifically bad brain time, but I've emerged victorious, so I hope you all enjoy this work - it's been fueled as much by my joy of recovery as it is for my love for my friends.
> 
> (P.S. There's a lot of Yiddish, Dutch, and French that show up in this, so I apologize profusely if it's broken and janky and bad - I tried my absolute best to use reputable translations (not Google), but I am but a simple mono-lingual hillbilly. Please... forgive me...) (I will also provide translations for anything the boys don't translate themselves in the End Notes)

**_Ambarino, 1899_ **

Hosea stared down into the steaming hot pool of brown liquid in his hands and decided that it may quite possibly be the warmest and most tranquil sight his tired eyes ever laid sight upon.

Logically, he knew that wasn’t true. He’d seen many things in his long fifty-five years that filled his heart with far more warmth and peace than a simple hot beverage. He’d seen a blood-red sunrise blazing across the great plains, illuminating a massive herd of bison grazing as their calves frolicked amongst them. He’d seen the deep carved etchings of the Earth that peeled back her layers to reveal the markings of millenia in the form of the Grand Canyon under a high-noon sun, almost glowing in a brilliant chiseled tapestry of sandrock golds and clay reds. He’d seen what seemed to be all the stars in the cosmos illuminate the void of the New Austin sky, billions upon billions of lights shining down on him, more than every soul of every living thing that ever walked the Earth, flowing in the river of the Milky Way that colored the nothingness in soft hues of pinks and greens and blues. He’d gazed into bright green eyes that put all the light and colors of the cosmos to shame, had witnessed soft sunlight filter through feathery strawberry-blonde locks blowing in the wind and knew that he would give up every sunrise and sunset to instead gaze at the way her hair seemed to be made of celestial fire. He’d seen the drawn, forlorn, and guarded faces of three orphaned children, carrying mountains of pain on their bowed shoulders, weathered and worn and forced to have grown beyond their years, meet his gaze and smile for the first time, or fall asleep to the sound of his voice, granting him the privilege of their love and trust after so many had tried to beat it out of them.

In the gutted hollows and shadows of the abandoned mining town of Colter, however, as he sat in his chair in a drafty shack with the bitter wind howling through the splintered wooden boards, his joints locked up from the cold and his violent shivering, his lungs heaving for air like they were thrice as thick, his nerves zinging with pain like he’d been submerged in ice water, the white-and-blue face of Davey plastered on the inside of his eyelids and the death throe wails of Jenny ringing in his ears, he figured the greatest comfort he could possibly hope for was just a simple coffee.

He didn’t even want to drink it. Its warmth seeped through the tin mug to ease the stinging in his hands, and its steam swirled up through the air in a slow, languid, beautiful dance, caressing his numb face like the ghostly fingers of a lost lover. It eased his heart, just a little. And just a little comfort was all he needed.

He didn't get much of that, these days. Comfort. It was becoming a rarity.

A lot of things had become rare as of late.

Smiles, for one. Laughter, too. How could they possibly be present with the sharp absence of Davey still a fresh wound in everyone's hearts? With his cross standing in their camp as a harsh reminder of their failure? Davey Callander may have been a violent, stupid son of a bitch, but he always loved to make them smile and laugh. Making Hosea smile and laugh always seemed to be his special mission. He could still hear that thick twang. _Hey, old man, why the long face? You keep that up and ol' Grimshaw will be snappin' at us to kick you outta camp with the horses! C'mon, gimme a smile! I'll cry if you don't smile!_

He would visit Davey's grave today, he thought. Summon a smile for him. Maybe ride out to Jenny's, too, and bring the crime novel he'd been reading to her. She'd been so excited to hear the next chapter after the cliffhanger, and he couldn't deny her that. Mac and Sean he couldn't truly do anything about. He wasn't a religious man, but perhaps he would try and recite Tefilat Haderech before bed for them both. For all of them. He hoped he remembered all the Hebrew.

His lungs grew a bit too heavy and stuttered, sending up a few weak coughs as they rattled in his chest, making the coffee slosh in the mug, disrupting its tranquility as well as his thoughts. He quickly reined his breathing back in and cradled the coffee closer, resting his elbows on his thighs to try and steady it and get the liquid to calm once more. He wasn't quite sure why it felt so important to get the coffee to settle just so he could stare at it. It was _just a coffee,_ after all.

...Or was it?

Maybe it was a symbol that he was desperately clinging on to. A symbol of normalcy. Of happier times. Its peaceful appearance and serenity warmed him through his hands, into his bones, and into his heart, reminding him of all the peaceful cups of coffee he’d ever had in his life, all the cups he ever shared with people he loved. To hold a cup of coffee meant that things were okay, if just for a bit. To see the liquid roiling around and sloshing over the brim was enough to make him tense enough to get nauseous. If he spilled or dropped the whole thing, he figured he may damn well cry.

But it didn’t spill. And he didn’t drop it. Instead, the liquid slowly settled, soothing its turbulent sloshing into gentle rocking, like that of a child. Arthur, John, and Tilly all rocked like that with their knees pulled to their chests when they were little, when they were scared or bored or even, in Arthur’s case, happy. It clued him in on the idea of gently swaying with them in his arms on dark, nightmare-addled nights where they ran to him so he could bundle them up in his coat. It was always his secret weapon to get them to calm down.

The thought was almost enough to overcome the weight dragging his face down and holding it in a stiff frown, anchored in the pit in his stomach. 

He reflected on the power of _things._

 _Every object has meaning beyond the surface,_ Dutch said once, back in his young and idealistic youth, back when he still carried the stars in his eyes instead of fire or blackened water. _Just think of money. What even is 'money' besides slips of tree pulp with some ink on it, or the stone of the Earth forged into a different shape? The value of any_ thing _is in the eye of the beholder. A truly happy and free man will see no worth in a thousand dollar bill, and priceless worth in a shared beer with a close friend._

Hosea slowly, reverently ran his thumb around the rim of the mug.

Dutch’s tone sure had changed since then.

The bonds with the name _Leviticus Cornwall_ emblazoned across them, stored securely in his room, weighing more heavily on Hosea’s shoulders than the train they’d robbed it from, were stark reminders of that.

He could still smell the scent of smoke and blood in Dutch’s hair from when Dutch passed out on his shoulder during their mad flight north into the mountains of Ambarino. He’d tucked his nose into those mussed curls and mess of half-frozen pomade at one point - he lied to himself that it was to warm it up - only to recoil at the too-strong stench of iron and something crusty meeting his skin. He’d gently worked it out of Dutch’s hair as the man slept on him and looked at his hand, stained a rusty orange-scarlet in the dim lantern light of the wagon, peppered with bits of skull and flesh. 

His heart plunged into the icy pit of his stomach when he saw innocent blood on his hand for the first time in thirty years.

He shuddered and hunched closer down over the coffee, dragging in a long, ragged inhale to fill his senses with the smell of hot steam and boiled grounds. The wind howled, the shack groaned, and Hosea gritted his teeth.

...What were they _doing?_

Where do they go from here?

Dutch didn’t know. Hosea sure as hell didn’t.

Things were so… _different,_ now.

 _Dutch_ was so different.

Hosea let out a pained sigh and held the coffee tighter.

He felt himself teetering on a dark precipice. He got like that, when things got all confusing like this. Gray and murky, complex and tangled and messy. He wasn’t afraid of things being _hard_ \- no, it wasn’t that. Things had been hard before. They’d been in hard times before. But _this?_ This was _different._ This was so much worse than anything they’d ever been through. Because this was the first time that Hosea ever felt truly _powerless._

Clouds had moved in front of the stars and he didn’t know which one to follow anymore.

Not with how much his vision blurred watching Dutch walk away from him, ignoring his ragged call of _"Dutch!"_ , completely shrugging off his input, his guidance, bullying through his pleas and trampling his plans to have _his_ way.

It was a pattern that had been slowly growing since Montana - hell, since _California_ \- spreading through their relationship like an infection, turning it gray and necrotic. It was the entire reason why Hosea erected an embargo on their intimacy and moved out of his tent - to try and remind Dutch in a show of force that his actions had consequences _._ Dutch simply responded by wooing a doe-eyed Miss O'Shea to warm his bed in Hosea's stead, a young and pretty thing who romanticized and swooned over his ideals and philosophy. Hosea wasn't young or pretty anymore, and he'd long since gone from swooning over Dutch's philosophy to challenging it.

His mind stumbled and slipped over that precipice, filling his head with images of Dutch tilting Molly's face up to deeply kiss her, with those brown eyes filling with dark fire when he asserted Micah Bell wasn't fit to run them, with the sight of Dutch's back as the man walked away from him and _kept_ walking away. He felt like he was being left behind, abandoned in the cold. He'd given Dutch all the thrill and adventure he could get out of him, but now he was broken - or worse, _boring,_ a spoilsport who refused to let the man gallop on the road to ruin. An old ball and chain, trying to slow down a runaway train enough for the others to jump off to safety.

He knew deep in his bones that this, _all_ of this - those days of romance and glory and virtue, of pretending they were sinning saints protecting the weak, the days of their _gang_ \- was done.

Maybe he should set an example.

Leave.

Coffee sloshed over the rim and bit his finger, snapping him back up onto the ledge.

The steam continued its slow, gentle dance as the liquid began to settle once more, soothing away the sharpness of the air and his mind with its soft curves and spirals, gently replacing those hurtful visions with the memory of how Dutch's eyes went wide when Hosea told him he must have left his scarf behind in the rush to evacuate camp, instantly taking off his own to wrap around Hosea's neck, slow and reverent with his knuckles brushing against his jaw; with how, in Montana, when Hosea suffered a crippling pain flare, the man dropped everything and dedicated himself to caring for his pained body all through the evening and through the night, worshipping him like he was some kind of divine gift instead of a broken plaything; with how, in California, as Hosea ran and flitted around, flapping his arms about, daydreaming out loud about the house they’d build together, Dutch sat there staring at him like he’d already found that happy ending. 

It also coaxed out a particularly old vision, an especially sacred and dear one, from almost twenty-four years ago.

A soft sigh escaped his nose as he stared down at that coffee.

It was just… a _coffee._

But it was also the reason why he would _never_ leave that man's side.

-~-~-

Hosea rolled over and realized he was cold.

His brow furrowed before he even opened his eyes. With a soft noise of complaint, he shifted even further over, reaching out an arm in search of Dutch's warm mass, hoping to burrow into him or haul him close. His hand plapped solely on cold canvas and empty space, and after a few seconds of Dutch's absence slowly registering, his eyes snapped open.

Fear and worry flooded through his veins as he pushed himself up and squinted in the dim morning light. 

It wasn’t unheard of for him to wake up without Dutch - he’d only known the man for barely a year, but there was a stretch where Dutch didn’t seem to sleep for a _month,_ reading through the night by their fire or pacing endlessly or even harassing him awake to tell him he was going for a ride. That three month stretch, Dutch seemed to be a nonstop ball of insufferable energy, talking endlessly and coming up with all sorts of nonsensical, hair-brained ideas that Hosea endlessly shot down like he was duck hunting, which gave way to Dutch becoming convinced that Hosea was going to abandon him in the middle of the night or the middle of a job. All the more fool him, since it all culminated in a harrowing misadventure that ended with their first kiss.

Things had been… quiet, since then. Dutch, especially, had been quiet. Too quiet for Hosea’s comfort. His cyclonic energy broke and gave way to a man who was especially somber, weary, and reluctant, deferring to Hosea to take the lead in most things - including their travel plan to make it to Chicago - and instead spending most of his time left to his own devices reading in silence, sleeping early, and sleeping late. Hosea had gotten used to waking up to Dutch still fast asleep, curled against his front or wrapped around his back, his fingers fisted into his shirt. If Dutch didn’t sleep until noon most days, Hosea would allow himself the selfish comfort of holding the man before making coffee and cooking breakfast, if only to avoid hearing Dutch’s panicked calls of _“Hosea?!”_ before Hosea gently revealed his presence in camp.

As things stood now, the cold spot where Dutch was supposed to be made him choke back his own call of _Dutch?!_

Deftly sliding his cattleman out of the holster of his gunbelt, Hosea quietly pushed himself up onto his knees and parted the tent flap just enough to peer outside. He instantly relaxed at the smell of coffee broiling over the fire, watched over by Dutch’s dark form kneeling over the red and golden flames, casting the man’s smooth clean-shaven face in warm dancing light that highlighted all the myriad colors contained in that man, like a pocket of summer softly juxtaposed against the harsh bleached white and icy blues of their surroundings, washed out by the brutal Illinois winter.

Hosea holstered his gun and let out a couple rough coughs into his collar as his lungs stiffened against the chilled air, making Dutch quickly look over his shoulder. The man immediately straightened up from his hunch and gave him a bright smile, holding up a hand. "Hang on, there, Old Girl, I got you."

Hosea quirked an eyebrow even as a small, fond huff puffed from his lips, but he settled down to sit in the mouth of the tent anyway. He watched as Dutch hurriedly poured a mug of coffee, then pulled out a small sack of - was that sugar? - and poured some in, followed by a glop of - _milk?_ \- from his canteen, stirring it all together with a metal spoon. Carefully grabbing the mug and leaving the spoon in the snow, Dutch slowly pushed himself up onto his feet and delicately stepped over to Hosea, kneeling down on one knee to present him with the coffee like a knight offering up his sword to his liege, or like Hosea was a bride-to-be.

"...What did you do wrong?" Hosea hedged with a warm chuckle, taking the mug. "And what do you want from me?"

"It's _just a coffee,_ my dear Hosea, I have no idea what you're talking about," Dutch replied with a chuckle of his own, settling down to sit at Hosea's side.

“Nothing is ever ‘just’ anything with you, Dutch,” Hosea said quietly and far, far, far more fondly than he initially aimed for. It was reflected in the warm, glowing grin on Dutch’s face and the crinkles in the corners of the man’s eyes.

“You’re right,” Dutch said softly, eyes never leaving his. “I have something else for you.” And with that, Dutch pulled a shining red apple out of his coat. 

Hosea’s brow slowly rose towards his hairline as his eyes blew wide. “Where the hell did you get an apple in the dead of a Midwest winter?” he breathed, resituating the mug into one hand so he could reach out for the precious fruit, curling his fingers around it to reverently take it from Dutch’s hand.

Dutch’s expression became a bit strained. “Ha… you don’t want to know.”

Hosea sniffed, then took a sip of his coffee, letting out a low, pleased hum - Dutch squirmed slightly next to him - before turning his head and biting into his apple, chewing slower and slower before coming to a stop. “Mmf. These don’t mix too good,” he said with his mouth full.

The way Dutch’s expression fell was outright comical, so Hosea laughed, tapping his partner’s nose with the apple as he set his coffee down in the snow. “Why don’t you get yourself a coffee instead of staring at me?”

“Right!” Dutch chirped, lurching towards the fire again. “Right! Of course!”

Hosea grinned at the man’s behind as he took another bite into his apple, chewing with a hum of appreciation once the coffee’s aftertaste had fully faded, letting him fully relish the fruit’s cool sweetness. “Did you get yourself an apple?”

“Naw, just a box of biscuits,” Dutch replied casually, fixing himself up an equally sweet cup of coffee. 

“So you gave yourself the complimentary breakfast that tastes good together? I see how it is.”

“Hey!” Dutch barked, stirring his coffee and glaring over his shoulder. “I busted my ass to get you that apple because I know they're your favorite! And you told me that story of you and your momma eating apples and honey!"

Hosea ignored the way his heart seemed to shiver in his chest to snort instead. "Yes, because being reminded of my dear mother is always so pleasant. And what should I do next time I fail to subtly butter _you_ up? Get you wooden shoes?"

"You always do this," Dutch said softly, turning with his coffee to make his way back to Hosea's side, pressing their sides together while refusing to look at him. "Every time we have a moment, you find a way to cheapen it."

Hosea slowly bit into his apple again to hide his frown, sending loud cracks and crunches through their camp like the sound of gunshots. He thought he spied a muscle in Dutch's jaw tic. Slowly, he casted his gaze down to the snow as he chewed. Swallowed.

"Old habits die hard, I guess," he said gingerly, his breath misting in the air in front of him. 

He never did like getting close with the men he ran with. The benefits of being a comedian, he thought, was that he could break whatever chummy tension started growing with some carefully aimed jokes and sarcasm like pouring lye on a weed. It hurt less when he inevitably left. And he _always_ left. Better to have it be on his terms than the other way around.

But those rules, of course, were _before Dutch._ Hosea wasn't quite so sure when he started thinking of his life in terms of _before Dutch_ and _after Dutch,_ but if Dutch van der Linde was anything, he was a man who defied expectations, broke all the rules, and turned institutions on their heads. Hosea's golden rule of _don't get attached_ had been shattered by those large, warm, calloused hands long ago, and the institution of his learned apathy had been inverted the moment a single mother scrambled to catch his hand, almost dropping the money he gave her, to say _Why, you're a good man._

 _"She doesn't know the half of it,_ " Hosea had muttered to Dutch as they rode away, voice quiet and shaken.

 _"You're right,"_ Dutch replied, reaching out to gently squeeze his shoulder as they rode, trailing his hand down to his elbow. _"There's far more good in you than even she saw."_

He shifted to knock his knee against Dutch's, biting hard into his apple and using his free hand to scratch at the denim over Dutch's knee to add to his apology. The intensity of Dutch's stare at the side of his face made him twitch.

“You got a little somethin’...” Dutch murmured, reaching into his coat to pull out his handkerchief. Hosea chewed idly while he watched the man, finally stilling after Dutch dabbed the cloth on his tongue a few times and reached over to wipe away the apple juice dribbled down his chin. A small smile pulled the corners of Hosea’s lips up as he stared at Dutch’s eyes, furiously focused on his work. They were very pretty, even when not direct, he thought - the kind of brown that made one feel warm, like soil in the summertime, or fine well-loved leather, or - he let out a small chuckle - like hot coffee on a cold morning. His eyelashes were pretty, too - a touch longer than most men's, dark and lovely, fanning out over his cheeks. That delicate mole on his cheek only further marked his beauty. The shape of his face, long and smooth with a strong jaw, a soft canvas of suntanned skin... his long raven locks, hiding a secret trove of wild curls that the man was impossibly embarrassed about… he reckoned Dutch was the most beautiful man he’d ever seen. Was even more beautiful than most women.

 _People wear their hearts on their faces,_ his grandmother once told him. _People who think pretty thoughts and do pretty things are pretty. People who think ugly thoughts and do ugly things are ugly._ Dutch felt like proof of the concept.

If only his own pretty face didn't prove that wrong.

"You're awfully sweet this morning," he said softly, tilting his chin up into the press of the cloth. "Surely you can understand why I'm suspicious."

"Do I need a reason to be sweet on you?" Dutch challenged, glancing his eyes upwards to meet Hosea's gaze with a coy smile, sending a bolt through his heart.

"Yes," Hosea said simply, sinking his teeth deep into the apple again, undoing all of Dutch's work.

Dutch's expression shuttered slightly as he removed the cloth and leaned back, but it quickly warmed again. Hosea had come to know the man well enough to tell it was forced.

"Well," Dutch said delicately, folding and returning his handkerchief into his coat, "I reckon we can reach Chicago today. It ain't all that much of a ride."

The word _Chicago_ made Hosea tighten his grip on his apple. "Mhmm." He took his last bite and then threw the core into the snow.

Dutch turned his head to look out to the north, breaking their gaze. "I was thinkin'… there's one last town between here and there." He tilted his chin down and took a long sip of his coffee. "I was wonderin' if you'd like to stop up in its saloon and share a hot meal with me."

Hosea pulled out his own handkerchief and wet it in the snow before wiping clean his chin. It was so much colder and more coarse than how Dutch did it. He brought his own coffee back up to warm his face. "There'll be time for hot meals in Chicago."

Dutch turned his head again, and their gazes locked once more. The air hung heavy around them. "You'll stick around that long?"

Hosea took a long drink of his coffee. It was sickeningly sweet - the way Dutch liked it. He swallowed, slowly, and he watched Dutch's eyes sink to follow the bob of his Adam's apple. "If you want me to," he said gently. 

The silence stretched on for several heavy, agonizing seconds.

Hosea's heart skipped a beat when Dutch reached out his hand to fold over his, encasing it in the same sense of strong warmth that his eyes filled his chest with. Dutch's voice sounded as gentle as a bubbling brook when he said, "I'd like that."

The plan - the plan for the entire past year, the agreement that made Hosea stay that first night they met each other - was for them to stick together until they reached Chicago. Dutch had intrigued Hosea enough after their hours-long debate on life, love, and America for him to take the man's offered hand and agree, _"I'll take up your mantle, van der Linde. I'll run with you - just until Chicago. But once we reach those streets, we're_ through, _understand?"_

It frightened Hosea to think of the possibility of Dutch asking for more. He was terrified of what he'd agree to if he did.

A lot of things about that man terrified him. Or maybe it was the parts of himself that Dutch uncovered that terrified him.

 _“You’re a good man, Hosea Matthews”_ was a phrase he’d heard more in the past year than he had in the past decade.

“...I think I’d like to stop for that hot meal anyway,” he said softly.

Dutch smiled, genuine. “I’ll pay.”

“A regular gentleman,” Hosea hummed, grinning into his coffee.

Dutch wiggled in that slight way that reminded Hosea of a preening bird. “I do try.”

They finished their coffees together in heavy yet companionable silence, occasionally bumping their shoulders or brushing their elbows together. When the warm liquids were reduced to just their last dregs, they quickly rinsed out their mugs with snow, threw out the rest of the coffee in the brewer, and set to work taking down their tent and destroying their fire.

“I gotcha, friend,” came Dutch’s voice from behind right as Hosea finished tying up their collapsed tent. Before Hosea could say anything, Dutch hoisted up the canvas and began strolling towards his bay mare.

Hosea slowly pushed himself upright and took a few seconds to catch his breath - his lungs always felt like they had to work three times as hard in cold or humid air, and that morning’s air was both. “I could’ve handled it,” he called over.

“I know you could’ve,” Dutch called back, slinging the tent onto his horse’s rump next to his bed roll before tying it down. 

Hosea smirked and shook his head as he stepped towards his palomino Kentucky Saddler - Vinegar, full name Piss 'n' Vinegar, the sourest old curmudgeon of a gelding he ever had the grace to own- or, well. _Possess._ He swiped the boy from an old group he used to run with when their negligence forced him to put his old horse down, and the old coot had been fat and happy ever since, even if he had an ornery streak the length of the Mississippi. He almost bit a chunk out of Dutch the first time the man tried to pet him, despite the man's patter about how horses 'just naturally loved him.' Hosea thought it was the funniest thing, but Dutch had held a grudge against ol' Vinegar ever since. Probably because the horse challenged the narrative he built around himself - tarnished his perfect golden boy image, rubbing off the varnish to reveal the fool's gold underneath. 

Hosea liked it when Dutch's human side showed through. The man's victories inspired him to follow, enchanted by a man who seemed larger than life, but it was only at Dutch's lowest points that he was moved to _love._

Watching the man reach into his satchel for a carrot, then confidently offer it to Vinegar, cringing away when Vinegar tried his damndest to include Dutch's fingers in his bite, it took Hosea a long beat to realize the wide, glowing grin on his face. "I _know_ you're definitely trying to butter me up if you're reaching an olive branch out to Vinegar."

"He ain't too ba- _aah,_ shit!" Dutch hissed, snatching his hand back to cradle to his chest as Vinegar lowered his head to the snow to eat the dropped carrot.

"Aw, did he getcha?" Hosea tutted, patting the top of Vinegar's rump to pass close behind so he could cross over to Dutch, clicking his tongue. "Let me see."

"It's _fine,"_ Dutch whined, holding his hand up and away from Hosea's grabbing hands. "Don't worry about it. Here, I wanted to-" and with that, Dutch spread his knees slightly and cupped his hands, gesturing his head towards Hosea's saddle.

Hosea slowly arced a critical eyebrow. "Are you… offering me a step up into my own saddle?"

Dutch grinned and shrugged, bobbing his head slightly. "Sure am."

It took everything Hosea had not to fondly put his hand over his mouth. Instead, he rolled his posture upright into something 'proper' and put on his best Northern Appalachian drawl to say, "Why, I _do_ declare that you are a _right gentleman,_ Mr. van der Linde," hiking up an imaginary skirt before planting his boot in the man's hands.

Dutch, for his part, put on an outrageously Pennsylvanian Yankee dialect, his native accent warbling all his vowels. "It is the least I can offer a _fine lady_ such as yourself, Miss Matthews." Once Hosea was hoisted up into and situated in the saddle, Dutch unhitched Vinegar's reins from the tree they'd been fastened around and slung them gently over the old boy's head, handing them to Hosea. Hosea took them graciously, then blinked in surprise as Dutch delicately took his hand and pressed a gentle kiss over his dry, cracked knuckles, a balm of soft warmth against the cold.

"What do you _want_ from me~?" he sing-songed, playfully glaring down his nose at the man.

“For you to let me treat you nice,” Dutch drawled back, bowing deeply with a flourish of his hand. 

Hosea rolled his eyes. “Get on your damn horse, you fool. We’ve got ground to cover if we wanna make it to Valparaiso by lunch, and I’m lookin’ forward to that meal.”

Dutch heaved a sigh and turned away from him, reaching into his satchel to feed another carrot to his dainty quarter-horse. “Why must our companions be so coarse, Empress? Huh?” he cooed at the mare, rubbing behind her ear as she gently lipped the carrot out of his palm.

Hosea smirked and leaned down to heavily pat Vinegar’s neck, sharing a conspiratorial look with his old graying friend. “We’ve gotta keep ya on your toes, Dutch, you know that.”

“Like a goddamn ballerina,” Dutch grumbled, rubbing Empress’s nose before grabbing her reins and mounting up. He looked to his side, and their gazes met, a spark of lightning flashing through the frigid air. Dutch broke the spell by looking down and then forward, clicking Empress into a slow trot through the snow, his expression drawn tight.

Hosea kissed twice and gave Vinegar a couple gentle taps with his spurs, urging him into a slow trot after them. He felt his smirk fade, then fall, as he stared at Dutch’s back, bowed against the frigid wind.

He saw a ballet performance, once, back when he was trying to find himself in New York. He stole a ticket and snuck in, sitting in the furthest back reaches when he wasn’t bumbling through the aisles picking pockets. At one point, he stopped and stared, mesmerized, at how the women and men on stage leapt and swayed and danced around each other, swirling towards each other and launching themselves away in spirals and circles.

It felt like he and Dutch were doing their own dance around the question of if Hosea was going to leave by sundown. And if not this sundown, then the next, or the one after that, or a month from now.

It frightened him to think of Dutch alone. He didn’t know who would pull him back from manically walking into the jaws of death, or pull him up onto his feet after he’d been beaten down, to wake him up in the mornings when he laid so very still. To sew and stitch him back together when the world tore him apart, to wash the blood off of his hands and his brow. To wrap their hand around his wrist to hold him back from taking the outstretched hands of predators with nothing but hunger in their eyes, men only too glad to take advantage of dreamers in a world full of living nightmares.

It physically sickened him to think that he once thought himself amongst them.

He hung his head as they rode, Vinegar kicking up into a canter after Dutch urged Empress slightly faster on the road, causing Hosea to reach back into his saddle-bag to pull out his hat and plant it upon his head, tugging it low over his face to shield him against the bitter wind.

...Dutch survived just fine on his own for four years, didn’t he?

And even if the man did die… Dutch van der Linde wasn’t the kind of man who lived long in this world, Hosea or not. Men as good or as ambitious as him never did. It would only be a matter of time - an inevitability - before Dutch would die, from bullets or sickness or some freak accident. The only difference would be whether or not Hosea was there to suffer it.

If Hosea was even _there_ to suffer it. Dutch’s old associates, the O’Driscoll brothers, had warned him of that much. _“That crazy son of a bitch is gonna get you killed, you know that, right?”_

And if both of them somehow dodged the grasp of death… well. Nothing good in the world ever lasted. Hosea had twenty-nine years of experience to attest to that before he met that doe-eyed young man, and he had never been proven wrong. As much as they both adored each other now, there would be an end to that honeymoon phase - a time where their partnership would wither, and become nothing but ash in their mouths.

It would be so _easy_ to let Dutch be a year’s worth of fond memories, to take all those wild adventures, all those jobs gone wrong in the most hilarious of ways, all those sleepless nights stargazing at each other’s side, every time they ever bathed together in a creek and the sun shimmered down the water rolling off those messy curls or the rippled muscles of his back, to take the memory of him sitting forlornly under that oak tree in the aftermath of that horrific doctor's visit and too-close call with an asylum, glaring at Hosea and croaking _"Guess you know the truth about me now,"_ only to jolt when Hosea took his hands, lifted his chin up with a finger, and said _"So you're crazy… well, I'm a fool,"_ sitting there with parted lips until Dutch leaned forward and opened him up like a blooming flower, feeling electricity coarse through him like being struck by lightning, like life breathed into one long dead… To take all those lessons learned from the man, and store them in a lockbox full of all his other few precious memories, immortalized forever, untouchable, incorruptible, and spend the rest of his days pretending that Dutch was happy and healthy, giving away all his money to the poor like always.

He slowly rose his gaze up to stare at Dutch’s back, his jaw set, feeling his age old sorrow settle deep in his chest.

He was a _survivor._ Always had been. He took pride in it, given how lustful the world was to spill the blood of men like him. To leave Dutch would be an act of kindness for them both. 

It would be an act of kindness.

It would be an inevitability.

He had to believe that.

Time passed as they rode, the Illinois countryside rolling past them in repetitive pale patterns of bare fence posts strung with barbed wire standing vigil over barren frozen fields, the land an endless ocean of white, reflecting the fading sun. Hosea looked up at the gray expanse of the sky and narrowed his eyes at a dark ridge of clouds to the west.

“We might want to keep an eye on those clouds,” he called forward.

Dutch looked up at the sky and found the clouds in question. “Think we should stay the night in Valparaiso?” he called back, his voice cracking.

Hosea hesitated for a long minute. "No," he finally hollered.

Dutch glanced over his shoulder, his expression heavy with a frown. "Do you want to skip lunch?"

The thought made his heart splinter slightly. "No, let's keep on," he yelled. "Those clouds ain't that bad yet!"

"Whatever you say!" Dutch called, his voice cracking again as he turned forward once more, and Hosea swore he caught the corner of a smile on that face.

A couple hours of riding later, they finally rode into the filthy, slushy streets of Valparaiso, gently urging their equine companions to pick their feet up high to slosh down the main street up to the town’s casino. They found their horses a pair of spots in front of a hitching post and dismounted, both men taking time to rub down their horses’ heads and necks in praise before making their way up onto the wooden porch. Dutch scampered forward ahead of Hosea and pushed the door open for him with a dip of his head, earning a warm smirk and quirked eyebrow from Hosea as he strode past.

In contrast to the frigid air outside, the air in the saloon was warm and homely, filled with heat from the blazing fireplace and all the bodies packed into it for the noon rush. Dutch bullied his way through a throng to clear a path for them both to an empty table for two by the window, pulling out a chair for Hosea with a flourish. Hosea snorted and plopped himself down in it, crossing his legs and reclining with an elbow on the back of the chair. Dutch gave him a companionable pat on the shoulder and gestured his head towards the bar. "Would you like anything in particular?"

Hosea looked him up at down, idly jiggling his foot as a bittersweet smile settled on his face. "Surprise me," he said over the din.

Dutch's brow rose upwards and his expression softened, a twinkle appearing in both his eyes and his smile. "Sure," he huffed, gently smacking his shoulder before walking away towards the bar. Hosea watched him go, eventually dragging his gaze away to stare out the window, rubbing his red and stinging hands together and breathing on them to try and warm them up.

Ten minutes later, Dutch swaggered back holding two large plates full of lamb's fry, looking like the cat who got the creme - Hosea's jaw dropped open, and Dutch's smile only got brighter as he set one plate down in front of Hosea, then settled in across from him with his own.

"...You got the most expensive item on the menu?" Hosea asked incredulously, numbly picking up his fork to stare down at the hearty meal, his mouth watering. “This has _gotta_ be the most expensive, right?”

Dutch already popped a forkful into his mouth. He held up a quick finger and swallowed, then casually shrugged. "Well, yeah. I know how much you love lamb." Then, softer, he said, "Plus, this is a special occasion."

Hosea's grip on his fork went white-knuckled. Instead of smiling or meeting Dutch's eyes, Hosea shoved a forkful of food into his own mouth while furiously avoiding Dutch's gaze. He did, however, uncross his legs and shove his foot against Dutch's under the table. Dutch shoved his back.

It wasn't long until Hosea started sneaking glances upwards, the warmth of the saloon and the lamb thawing something in his chest. Dutch ate in silence, moving his fork and chewing slowly, occasionally moving his food around his plate for a few seconds before delicately scooping it onto his fork. The pale light from the window and dim firelight of the saloon cast his face in contrasting hues of blues and reds, highlighting his strong cheekbones, the gentle curve of his full cheeks, the endearing cleft of his chin, and the dark shadows of his eyelashes. The next thing Hosea knew, he was staring directly into brown irises, full of all the warm shades of home.

He couldn't look away.

"Hosea," Dutch said softly, and Hosea marveled at how his rich baritone carried over all the chaotic din of the saloon. "Will you… stay… with me…" Hosea felt his own expression start shuttering before Dutch added, "...for the night?"

He felt his expression soften. "Sure."

And then all at once, the pale light from outside seemed to extinguish.

Both men turned their heads to look out the window as an uneasy murmur rippled through the saloon, watching pale white flurries tumble sideways as the sky grew dark at high noon, the wind howling past to rattle the windows and blow trash down the street.

"Shit," Hosea hissed, shoveling the rest of his meal in his mouth. "This blizzard's moving faster than I thought-" he roughly gulped, then clearly said "-if we don't leave now, we'll never beat it to Chicago."

"Shouldn't we stay, then…?" Dutch hedged, gesturing up at the ceiling where the rooms were.

The thought made Hosea's stomach twist into a knot. Being stuck in a room with Dutch just a stone's throw away from Chicago, laid up by a Great Lakes blizzard that would last who knew how many days... He didn't trust himself not to do something stupid.

"No," he said firmly, standing up with a start. "We can still make it, now _come on."_

"But-"

Hosea started walking away, calling back, "I'll leave without you!"

He heard a loud clatter as Dutch scrambled after him.

The second Hosea opened the saloon doors, the freezing wind stole his breath straight out of his lungs. He gasped fruitlessly for air for a few seconds before coughing into his shoulder, weakly dragging in a whistled lungful before staggering his way towards Vinegar, pulling his coat tighter around himself. He grabbed Vinegar's reins from the post and slung them over his neck, giving the old boy's head a brief embrace as an apology for taking him out in such conditions, then pulled the rein gently taut before hoisting his foot into the stirrup. He froze when Dutch's large hand clamped around his wrist on the saddle, fully encasing it.

"It ain't like you to risk us getting caught in a blizzard," Dutch said firmly beside him, his voice rigid and low, carrying a note more icy than the wind. "Besides, think of your lungs. Are you so eager to be rid of me you'd risk _killing yourself?"_ Hosea finally met his gaze at that, and Dutch lifted his chin in challenge. "I ain't playing these games."

Hosea narrowed his eyes. "I said I'd stay the night. In Chicago."

Those brown eyes blazed like fire. "What's the hurry? What difference does a night or three make? We've been together for a _year,_ Hosea, you really think anything could make this any less hard?"

Hosea huffed out of his nose, bristling like a provoked bull. "Yes. You could stop being so goddamn _cute."_

Dutch blinked. Then blinked again. "Huh?"

Hosea snatched his wrist out of Dutch's slackened grasp and hoisted himself up on Vinegar's back, deftly slipping his other foot in the second stirrup before harshly clicking and gently sawing the reins to get Vinegar to back up, nearly bowling Dutch over. “We got ground to cover, now _c’mon, let’s ride!_ Hyah!”

And with that, and a guttural grunt and tossed head from Vinegar, Hosea rode out of town at an urgent canter, bobbing and weaving around wagons and pedestrians before kicking Vinegar up into a gallop on the main road, tearing through the snow towards Chicago, racing against the dark rolling clouds barreling behind him.

It wasn’t long before the pounding sound of Empress’s hooves came barreling up behind him, swiftly pulling up to gallop at his side. Dutch looked more worked up than a wet hellcat. “What did you call me?!”

“You know what I said!” Hosea chirped back, throwing a smirk at that dark glare.

Dutch’s low furrowed brow and slight pout was adorable and proved his point. “You dodged my question!”

“I called you cute!”

 _“Not that question,_ the one befo-” Dutch made a low, frustrated growl that got swallowed up by the beat of Empress’s and Vinegar’s hooves. “Do you really have your heart set on leavin’ tomorrow?” he called, his voice cracking on _leavin’._

Hosea let the wind whistle past his ears for a long minute, his smirk withering and wilting away on his face, letting the old familiar rolling motion of Vinegar’s lumbering gallop keep him grounded as he stared between his companion’s ears. He told the truth. It was the only thing he could do - he’d long since lost the ability to lie to the man. “I ain’t made up my mind yet.”

Dutch’s entire demeanor immediately shifted as if he were on thin ice. “O-Oh,” he said. After a beat, he had Empress fall behind to follow Vinegar, out of view.

The heat of Dutch’s gaze on the nape of his neck made it itch.

After a couple hours of hard riding, the clouds overtook them with an enraged howl as its wind whipped the trees, bringing with it an ungodly torrent of snow. Both men pulled in their horses to continue at a determined trot, all four bowing their heads low against the wind and snow that whipped their faces as Vinegar and Empress fought to pick their knees up high and keep pace through the rapidly building sheets of white.

 _“Well, I hope you’re happy!”_ Dutch hollered from behind.

“We’re almost there, don’t lose your-!” Hosea started to holler back, but lost his breath with another howl of wind. He curled in on himself and rubbed at his chest, feeling his lungs _breathing,_ heaving in and out, but seeming like they were barely processing the frigid wet air they sucked in, like he was suffocating without his chest even locking up. 

_“You okay?!”_ came Dutch’s voice, barren of every ounce of bitter smugness it held only seconds before.

Hosea opened his mouth and turned his chin towards his shoulder, struggling for a long few seconds before finally managing to breathlessly yell, “Hard to breathe with this wind!”

 _“You want my scarf?”_ Dutch hollered, sounding further away, and Hosea’s heart picked up its beat with a spike of anxiety, barely processing what the man said.

“Dutch, pull up ahead of me so I can keep track of you!” he ground out, twisting around in the saddle to try and spy Dutch and Empress’s forms behind him. It was easy enough to spy Empress’s dark color and Dutch’s bulk hurrying up to them through the snow, and soon enough Dutch had pulled up to his side, not even a foot away, and Hosea was all at once taken aback by the fact that the man _wasn’t wearing a hat_ \- and was _taking off his scarf,_ wrapping it around Hosea’s neck instead and tugging it up over his mouth and nose. 

Hosea’s breaths immediately came easier once his face was wrapped in the warm cloth, flooding his senses with Dutch’s comforting smell, of rosin and lemon and smoke, sending a swirling tingle of warmth down his front. He took a deep breath, reveling in how his lungs finally decided to process the air, then took off his hat and shoved it on top of Dutch’s head. “The hell are you doing without a hat?” he barked, reaching into his saddle-bag for his spare.

Dutch reached up and pulled Hosea’s black ridge top hat further down over his eyes, shielding it from the biting snow. “I lost mine getting you that apple,” he gruffed. “And dammit, I loved that hat… Why the hell do you have so many hats anyway?”

Hosea chuckled and blinked away another wave of snow that tried to sting his eyes, getting caught in his eyelashes. He pulled his new hat lower over his own eyes. “They look nice. I like to cycle through ‘em.”

“You don’t just- keep one favorite?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

Hosea smacked Dutch on the shoulder and smiled behind the man’s scarf, laughing. “Because I lose ‘em!”

Dutch met his eyes, and the look they shared rolled straight over Hosea’s attempt at mirth, hanging heavy between them, burning hot and bright through the snow.

Dutch’s expression was as serious as the grave when he said, “That’s my favorite scarf.”

The next second, the man urged Empress up to forge ahead a couple paces in front of Vinegar, leaving Hosea to stare blankly at the back of his head before eventually sinking his gaze to Empress’s tail.

After twenty minutes in that icy gale, the hulking shadows and gentle pulsing lights of Chicago emerged in the haze, guiding them into the embrace of its vast abandoned streets. The snow accumulated on every inch of their horses’ thick shaggy winter coats and the men’s thick woolen ones as they waded through the snow into the city proper, its multi-story buildings only partially shielding them from the wind and snowdrifts. Hosea kept his chin and nose determinedly tucked into Dutch’s scarf, violently shivering in the saddle, trying to bury himself as deep into his own coat as he could manage. 

He squinted and blinked through the thick white waves to look for shelter - a hotel, a saloon, anything - and finally spotted the bold letters of _SALOON_ further up the street. He turned his gaze towards Dutch, trying to determine if the man saw it, and relaxed when he saw his head angled straight at it. Then, Dutch looked around, stiffened, and reined Empress in the opposite direction, spurring her faster.

Hosea didn’t have the air or the strength to demand what Dutch was doing, but he followed him anyways. He saw what drew Dutch’s attention after only a few seconds, his heart skipping a beat.

Dutch was making a beeline for a curled-up figure sitting slumped in a doorway, holding their head in their arms, almost completely covered in snow, wearing only jeans, a threadbare shirt, a worn jean jacket, and a flat cap. 

Pulling Vinegar to a stop, he watched as Dutch pulled Empress up beside the poor soul and stiffly threw himself down from the saddle, staggering forward to kneel in front of the vagrant and grasp them by the shoulders. Dutch shook them slightly, his voice carrying on the wind, a loud and urgent note that was rendered unintelligible by the air whistling and howling through the buildings. The poor sod finally lifted their head - a man, Hosea thought, with a long and strong-boned face, the kind that most people associated with ‘simple’ folk - snow and ice caked to his cheeks and eye-lashes, and Hosea swore his lips would be blue if he could see them up close. He and Dutch exchanged a few words, too quiet to hear, and then Dutch was suddenly taking off his thick heavy coat and wrapping it around the man. 

Hosea opened his mouth to shout his protest, but something stilled his voice that wasn't the wind.

The homeless man was looking at Dutch like he was the sun after a storm - like he was a lifeline thrown into whitewater rapids, or a ladder lowered down a collapsed mine shaft, or… a kind soul, seeing him as a _man,_ rather than any derogative society would label him as.

Hosea was very familiar with that look of awestruck hope. He wore it plenty.

As Dutch staggered through the snow with a supportive arm around the half-frozen man, heading towards the small and exhausted form of Empress, Hosea rode Vinegar up and extended his hand, gesturing behind his saddle with his head. The man gave him the same look he gave Dutch - Hosea's stomach flipped over - and after hearing Dutch say "It's okay, he's with me," the man took his offered hand and let himself be roughly hauled up onto Vinegar's back, fitting much easier on the gelding's tall and proud frame. Hosea side-eyed Dutch as he did so, catching the man's radiant smile, and used his free hand to slug him in the shoulder, chasing him up and onto Empress before the damn fool froze to death.

Vinegar pinned his ears back at the added weight and commotion, but Hosea scratched his favorite spot on his neck and got them forward again before clicking and kicking the old boy into a bold canter towards the saloon, charging through the snow drifts and the wind with a loud bellow of complaint. He looked back to make sure Dutch was close behind right as the man behind him cinched his arms around his stomach, breaths coming in rapid and afraid in his ear. Hosea stiffened, then awkwardly patted the man's elbow.

In less than a minute, Vinegar and Empress fought their way to the front of the saloon, and Hosea summoned his strength to call out "Good boy!" over the wind and clap Vinegar twice on the neck before jumping down into the snow, reaching out his arms to help the homeless man down as well. Once the man's feet hit the snow, Hosea slung an arm around his shoulders and quickly guided him around Vinegar to where Dutch was still sitting in his saddle, shivering too hard to get off. Hosea grabbed him by the belt and _yanked,_ sending him stumbling and flailing to land roughly on his feet and bounce off of Hosea's chest. He wasted no time grabbing Dutch by the collar and hauling both he and their impromptu companion to the saloon doors, practically kicking them open before dragging them inside.

One only needed to take one glance inside the building, coated in reds and golds and dark polished mahogany, to tell that it was 'high end.' The homeless man's jaw dropped at the sight of the crystal chandeliers and intricate candelabra before Hosea let him go to close the doors behind him. Dutch quickly moved in and took the man instead, patting him on the back and guiding him by the elbow as they both shiveringly staggered towards the barkeep, who wrinkled his nose in disdain.

"G-G'day, M-Mister," Dutch said, his teeth chattering, but that sure didn't stop him from removing his - Hosea’s - hat with a bow of his head, grinning at the barkeep with his apple pie charm. "Can I get s-some rooms and h-hot baths f-for me and my c-c-companions here?"

The barkeep looked down his nose at them all. "Single rooms are a dollar each, and we only have two left. Baths are fifty cents."

"Well th-that's just fine," Dutch replied with a cool smile, reaching into his satchel to press three dollars and a quarter onto the counter. The barkeep quirked his brow, glancing from the money to Dutch standing there slowly starting to drip all over the carpet in his wet plain clothes, then gingerly took it to place in the register like it was dirty.

The homeless man incessantly tugged on Dutch's sleeves and slurred, his jaw struggling to form words against more barriers than just shivering, "I don't… have-... money… to- pay… you…-"

Dutch turned towards the man and his smile instantly went from cool disdain to warm encouragement. "There is no n-need for rep-payment, my f-friend," he soothed. "In fact - h-here, I want you to t-take this." And with that, he pulled out all the rest of the cash in his satchel and pressed it into the man's hands - somewhere around sixty dollars. "What's your name, f-feller?"

The man's eyes were rapidly welling with tears. "B-... Benny," he stuttered. "Sm-... Smith." He cradled the cash close to his stomach, then started shrugging out of Dutch's coat, only for Dutch to stop him.

"Naw, you keep that, you n-need it more than me," Dutch soothed, clapping the man on the shoulder with a gentle smile while Hosea clenched his jaw.

Smith shed a few tears down his cheeks, then firmly grasped Dutch hands and shook them vigorously. "Thank… you… Mister…?"

"Van der Linde," Dutch said warmly, chuckling slightly at the handshake. "Dutch van der Linde." 

Smith turned towards Hosea next. "Thank… you…?"

Hosea crossed his arms and politely inclined his head. "Hosea Matthews."

Smith smiled and nodded, his bottom lip trembling, while Dutch picked up their room keys off the bar and asked, "May I ask where the baths are, _kind sir?"_

The barkeep set to washing dishes and shrugged vaguely upwards. "Upstairs in the first left alcove, just follow the pictures that look like a bath."

"You heard the man," said Dutch, turning to press a key into Smith's hand. "Get you that hot bath, and eat and sleep _well,_ Mister Smith."

Smith lurched forward and crushed Dutch in a hug, surprising a laugh out of him as he patted his back, then turned to hurry towards Hosea, ignoring his firm headshakes of _no_ to also crush him in a hug - Hosea went rigid and bared his teeth slightly - before finally limping off towards the stairs, turning back to wave at them every few seconds.

When Smith was out of view, Dutch drifted towards where Hosea was still standing next to the front doors, finally coming to a stop in front of him, his bright expression sobering at the look on Hosea's face.

"What was that?" Hosea asked quietly, barely audible under the sound of the blizzard outside, the blackjack game in the corner, and the strained faint wheezing of his lungs.

Dutch innocently shrugged. "I saved a feller that needs saving."

"By giving away your coat?"

"I can buy or steal a new one."

"You gave away all your money."

"I can steal more of that, too."

Hosea narrowed his eyes. "So what's the plan? You gonna save every homeless person in Chicago?"

Dutch shrugged again and winked, shoving his hands deep in his pockets in that good ol' boy way of his. "I'm gonna damn well try."

Hosea was quiet for a long few seconds, dropping his gaze down to the floor and shifting his weight. "If that fella doesn't die tonight, he's just gonna die a few nights from now or when he runs out of your money. You know that, right?"

He saw Dutch's arms rise to cross in front of his chest, mirroring his posture. "No, I don't know that, and you don't neither. Besides, it don't matter."

"Doesn't it?"

"It _don't,"_ Dutch insisted, dropping his arms to firmly grab Hosea's shoulders with a gentle shake, making him lift his gaze and drop his arms, ensnared in those warm glowing browns like a moth with a flame. "Maybe this was enough to get his life good again. Maybe this was enough to get him through this winter. Maybe this gave him a week, or three days - or maybe just this one night of happiness. What you don't seem to _understand,_ Hosea, is this-"

Dutch slowly smoothed his hands under Hosea's shirt collar and set about fixing it, occasionally brushing his knuckles against Hosea's pulse, his expression soft and open, eyes never leaving his, pinning him down with as much force as his arms were capable of. "There are countless things in this world that try to kill folk. Try to _ruin_ folk, to tear them apart from the people they love and take everything they have. But if we give into the fear of that? If we choose apathy, inaction - if we choose to run away instead of _fighting,_ for every minute, every _second_ we get to spend in this world, with the things that _matter?"_ Dutch huffed out a breath that ghosted over Hosea's face, his hands finally stilling at the junction of his shoulders and his neck. Hosea was lost in the man's eyes, staring at his own reflection shining back at him. "Well. The way I see it… Giving that up means you're already dead."

Hosea found he had nothing to say.

After another few seconds, Dutch dropped a hand to pat his chest and stepped back slightly, careful of the glances they were getting from the barkeep, the blackjack table, and the working girls. “The horses have worked hard today,” Dutch said gruffly, clearing his throat and looking down at the floor. “I’m gonna go take care of ‘em. You go get your bath, let the steam help those old pipes of yours.”

“Dutch,” Hosea said softly, sighing, “c’mon, let me take care of the horses. You’ve done enough.”

Duch flicked his gaze up to him for a moment, just long enough to rumble, “I _insist.”_

Hosea scoffed and rapidly whipped the man’s scarf off from his neck, fastening it tightly around its original owner’s neck instead. “Then take your scarf back,” he said, then shucked off his coat, manhandling Dutch around to shove it over his arms and onto his shoulders, “and you can _have_ my coat, you damned fool.”

“And your hat?” Dutch began, looking at him over his shoulder with the beginnings of a wary, coy smile.

Hosea clicked his tongue and fixed its position on top of the man’s dissolving mess of black curls. “And the hat,” he said softly. 

The corners of Dutch’s eyes crinkled. “I’ll run out and bring you the saddle-bags real quick so you can get a change of clothes before I take care of ‘em. Here’s the key.”

Hosea grasped their room key and used it to poke Dutch’s shoulder. “You’ll find oatcakes in my pockets, make sure you give Vinegar two, -”

 _“‘-they’re his favorite,’”_ Dutch finished with Hosea, nodding and laughing slightly before finishing, “I know, I know.” And with one last pat on Hosea’s shoulder, he pushed the front doors open and slipped out into the blizzard once more, fastening Hosea’s coat over his front. Only a minute later, Dutch had popped in and out again, handing Hosea the saddle-bags, and Hosea began his miserable trek up the stairs. 

He marveled at the phenomenon of feeling so much it felt like he wasn't feeling anything at all.

In a numb, blurred haze, Hosea let his body absently take him to their room, sling their saddlebags over the back of a chair, grab a shirt and pair of jeans, carry him to the washroom, and undress. It was only when his dry, cold skin hit the hot bubbly water that he felt present again, sinking into the heat with a shudder and a half-pained, half-pleased groan, oozing downward and letting his head loll back, his eyes half-lidded as his jaw fell open with a sigh.

He let himself breathe the steam in for a long minute.

He tried not to think about Dutch.

The feeling of his hands bracketing his neck. Their comforting weight on his shoulder, his back, his knees.

The fact that they were _comforting._

The fact that the man’s smell was comforting. That he missed his scarf.

The fact that he knew what his lips felt like. What he tasted like.

He clenched his jaw and sat up a little straighter, grabbing the sponge to start scrubbing at his arm, determined to purge Dutch from his mind-

-only to jump when a sharp rap came at the door, accompanied by a woman’s voice calling, “Need some help, baby?”

Hosea sank down into the bubbles until only his head was out of the water, feeling adrenaline surge through his veins as he ground out _“No thank you”_ a bit more harsh than he’d like.

“Aw, you sure?”

Hosea sucked in a deep breath through his nose and managed a far more cordial “I’ll be fine, my good Ma’am.”

“Well, if you say so,” the woman sighed, put-upon and playful, before her footsteps faded away.

Hosea sank even further down into the water, hating the sick unease roiling in his stomach.

There once was a time where he would have said yes. Would have greeted her with half-lidded eyes and a warm smirk, sprawled out in the bath for her gaze, baring his throat; would have complimented her smile, her eyes, her voice, would have asked her about her day and her life and her family; would have subtly invited her hand to wander, would have bit back the bile and pretended to enjoy it; would have asked her if he could meet her someplace later and show up the perfect gentleman, would have given her a flower and kissed her knuckles and brought her to completion at least twice before robbing her blind while she slept in the afterglow, leaving her with nothing but her clothes and the damn flower.

It disgusted him. It made him disgusted at _himself._ He swore off of it, even, no matter how valuable the mark, woman or man, or how starving he was. He didn’t like it when it was business, and he certainly never felt _pleasure,_ even before he made a gimmick out of it and slept around because he wanted connections or even just a warm bed. The best he ever got were rough nights with the fairweather friends he made, less because he wanted to say yes and more because he couldn’t think of any reason to say no - nights that always left him feeling hollow, staring blankly at the ceiling after the high wore off.

But.

If it had been Dutch who knocked on that door…

He fully closed his eyes and grimaced. Lord knew that young devil tried to seduce _him_ plenty of times, ever since Hosea let slip that he’d lied with men. It had been a game, at first - the two of them flirting madly, Hosea leading him on until he was _just_ on the precipice before rejecting him, reveling in the man’s confusion and pouting, flummoxed at the way Hosea never gave him what he wanted. He never pouted for long, of course - he always ended up bedding at least one woman in plum near every town they went to, and he sure was all smiles when he had women hanging off of him at parties or made a damsel in distress blush at his chivalry. 

But then they shared one too many drinks. One too many smiles, one too many laughs. Then Dutch pinned him up against a wall and growled out that Hosea deserved better than to write himself off as a worthless bastard at best, and a killer at worst - that he was a _good man,_ a man worth knowing and a man worth _trusting._

Then Dutch’s hand wandered, Hosea told him no, and just like that - Dutch dropped it.

Dutch asked him a little while after why Hosea wouldn’t lie with him. Hosea told him, _“‘Cause I like you. I don’t lie with people I like.”_

The thing was… sitting in that bath, wishing that Dutch was in it with him, he knew that he far more than _liked_ that abominable, insufferable man.

He was in love with him.

And of course he was in love with a man who said _love wasn’t real_ \- that romance was a “societal construct” invented as a mythic chain meant to bind free men and women into compliance, and that he, _great awakened visionary_ that he was, believed only in the greater love of his fellow man, his country, and of life. 

With a deep growl, Hosea shook his head and set back to scrubbing himself with the sponge in the rapidly cooling water, the bubbles almost fully flat. 

Goddammit, he had a _code_ for a _reason._

It wouldn’t end well. Partnerships _never_ end well. And outlaws don’t get happy endings.

He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and splashed the water on his face.

Dutch could give all the sweeping penny novel hero monologues he’d like. They were going to lose one or the other eventually, or both at the same time, to death or bitterness, and if he had any say in it, he was going to get to choose and have it be on _his terms._

He hated being powerless.

He _wouldn’t_ be powerless.

Love… made him powerless. And he loved Dutch van der Linde more than anything in the world.

Clambering out of the tub, he idly toweled off, then absently shrugged his fresh shirt on, not bothering with his union suit. He slowed and paused once he got the shirt half-buttoned, furrowing his brow at how it hung loosely off of him, his muscles not properly filling its space. 

He hardened his expression into a murderous glare at the wall when he realized he grabbed Dutch's clothes instead of his own. Closing his eyes with a tense sigh out of his nose, he finished buttoning the shirt, then pulled on the other man's too-wide pants, cinching them tightly around his hips with his belt, before grabbing his old cold wet ones and his boots and making his way out into the alcove, padding barefoot through the halls to slip inside their room.

He stared and took it in properly for the first time. It was a regal thing, dimly lit with only a fireplace and a few candles, casting warm dancing light across the dark wooden walls and pinewood floors. A massive intricate ornate rug sat in the middle of the floor, bearing a delicate pattern of reds and golds that mirrored the heavy velvet curtains and the drapes surrounding the queen-sized bed.

The sight of his coat and hat on the coat rack told him that Dutch had already been there.

Something broke in his chest, and all at once, sorrow crashed over him like a thunderclap, washing away all of his righteous determination, making him fling his wet clothes into a corner before walking up to an armchair in front of the fireplace and throwing himself down into it, dropping his boots to lie haphazard in front of the flames, pulling his knees up to his chest and resting his head in his hand.

He could make it easier. Take his coat back, grab his things, sneak out to the horse shed and to Vinegar to find some other saloon or hotel, then get himself good and lost. No need for goodbyes, no need for tears, no need to see Dutch's face.

It didn't have to be hard.

He blinked and stared into the fire. And stared. And kept staring.

The door to their room opened and shut, and he sank further back into the chair with a shuddered sigh.

He listened to the soft sound of Dutch's bare footsteps make their way behind him, heard the rustling of clothes being dropped to the floor, then listened to them approach him until they were right behind the armchair. He looked up at the same time Dutch looked down, and their breathing shifted in sync - Dutch was staring at him with his hair damp and wild, washed free of pomade and swooping in every direction, arcing and curving around his head like an ebony halo and dangling in front of his eyes, which were wide and blown, slowly sweeping down from Hosea’s face to trail down his bared neck and take in what he was wearing. Hosea swallowed thickly as his own eyes trailed downwards, flowing with the shivering shadows that danced down the length of Dutch’s throat, breaking on the swell of his bare chest and pooling in the dip of his collarbone, warm golden light dancing on the gold chain around his neck that Hosea gifted him on his birthday, shimmering off of residual water droplets as they trailed down the bulk of his swollen biceps and pectorals, getting lost in the thick dark sheet of his chest hair; Dutch slowly shifted around the chair, and Hosea’s eyes followed him, falling further to follow his hair down over the soft supple fat over his stomach and hips, down to thicken at his navel, the beginnings of his fluff peeking out over the top of his low-hanging jeans, barely clinging to his hips.

“Hey,” Dutch said softly, his voice thick.

Hosea lifted his eyes back up to those warm, glowing browns. “Hey,” he whispered back.

“We need to talk.”

Hosea slowly inclined his head, and Dutch shuffled to the armchair beside him, sinking down to sit and shift himself towards him, spreading his knees wide to lean forward and clasp his hands between them. Hosea pushed himself up just enough to rest his elbow on the armrest, turning his head to look at the profile of Dutch’s face. “What do we need to talk about?”

Dutch looked up and over at him, their eyes locked, and suddenly Hosea was trapped, more helpless than a rattlesnake in the talons of an eagle.

“Us.”

Hosea slowly licked his lips, and he was given the briefest respite when Dutch’s eyes followed the motion. “What about us?”

Dutch locked onto him again and reached out a hand to wrap around his, encasing it in firm warmth, in the blended sensations of soft skin and rough calluses. Hosea’s heart stopped.

“Hosea…” Dutch started, his voice quiet and shivering on his name like the firelight. “Over this past year… you’ve become… incredibly dear to me. More dear to me than I ever thought possible. For anyone. And I know in the grand scheme of things we haven’t known each other long, but…” Dutch’s hand softly squeezed his, and the man shook his head so slightly it was almost imperceptible. “It feels like I’ve known you far longer. Like… like I’ve always known you. Like… we were _meant_ to be together. Like you were always meant to be at my side, and ‘Sea, I-” Dutch took a deep breath. “I can’t imagine myself without you at my side no more.”

Hosea couldn’t speak. His head and his heart were a blank, still pool.

“You make me feel…” Dutch continued, trailing off to press his lips into a thin line and shake his head again. “...invincible.” He shifted slightly closer. “With you, I… I feel like I can do anything. Go anywhere. I have never felt safer than with you at my back, and Hosea, I don’t want anyone else guarding my back but you. I would have surely been dead six times over if it hadn’t been for you, you- you’ve stopped me from bleeding out and kept me from starving and freezing to death and from getting crushed or shot or ambushed and who knows what else, and for all your _talk,_ you’ve had a dozen chances to leave me when I got into trouble, but you didn’t. You were _there._ You came _back.”_

Hosea frowned.

“I know you care,” Dutch said, a bit louder, his brow furrowing. “About me. About a _lot_ of things. I know you got a big, bleeding heart in that chest of yours, ‘cause I’ve felt it, Hosea, and it’s goddamn _beautiful._ You got-” Dutch huffed out a breath, sitting up straighter, bristling with energy “-a _light_ in you, Hosea. I’ve told you it before, and I’m tellin’ you now. You may think of yourself as some drifting conman who don’t believe in nothin’, but I know that’s a crock of shit. You can’t pretend you don’t give a damn, because I’ve _seen_ you. I’ve _known_ you. And Hosea, I will walk straight up to God, straight up to the damn Devil, to tell them that you are a _good man.”_

His eyes stung.

“Y’know…” Dutch bit his lip and broke their gaze, turning his head to stare at the fire. “I’ve talked a lot about love. And I thought I had it all figured out. But you…” he smirked and huffed a breath, turning his head to stare at Hosea’s knees before flicking his gaze back up to his eyes. “...You’re something else. Hosea, you… you make it all make _sense._ All them damn stories, them poems, them songs about- about true love? About… how one person can be your entire world? I thought it was the cheapest bullshit I ever heard, but that was before I woke up one day and realized that _you…”_

Dutch slowly pushed himself out of the chair and moved to kneel in front of Hosea, letting go of his hand to gently wrap his hands around his ankles and tug, guiding them down to the floor on either side of him when Hosea relented, leaning forward to plant his hands on Hosea’s chest, curling his fingers into his own shirt.

Dutch’s eyes were taking in every inch of his face, his expression full of more reverence than Hosea had ever seen, his thumbs swiping in slow arcs over Hosea’s chest. “Hosea… you are _everything_ to me. _I love you._ In every sense of those words." His brow pinched upwards, and his eyes shined with tears, with endless dreams and impossible promises. “Stay with me,” he breathed, giving him a faint shake. “ _Stay with me_ and build a future with me.”

A tear slipped down Hosea’s cheek. His heartbeat roared in his ears, and with a shaking hand, he slowly cupped Dutch’s jaw and leaned down to press their foreheads together.

He already made his decision.

“I have lived… for thirty years,” Hosea said softly, gently caressing his thumb across Dutch’s cheek. “An entire lifetime. And I don’t know many men who made it much longer than I’m at now who weren’t rich and lazy.” He dropped his gaze, pressing his forehead more firmly against Dutch’s. “I never really expected to live past twenty,” he said with a mirthless chuckle. “The parts where I come from, coal country, some didn’t live past their tenth birthday. And this whole time, I’ve been thinking… that I was _lucky._ Lucky to… _survive_ in a world full of deadbeat fathers and neglectful mothers and machines and hatred and _death._ All my years, all the folk that I’ve seen, and I’ve never seen much kindness... just a buncha folk out for themselves. Who’d sell you up shit creek for a buck and a pack of smokes, and all the folk who wouldn’t are already down the river or six feet in the ground.”

Dutch slowly moved his hand to splay over Hosea’s collarbone, applying more and more gentle pressure until Hosea was leaning back away from him in the chair, forced to meet his eyes again and see the concerned crease of his brow, his mussed curls backlit by fire, like he was some kind of angel. Hosea reverently brushed the man’s hair out of his eyes and tucked it behind his ear.

“I’ve dedicated my entire existence to survival,” he said lowly, his tone flat and quivering, just slightly. Dutch moved his other hand up to frame the side of his neck, cradling his pulse. “To be the one to take the easy way out. To take and to take and to take and damn the rest. Fuck you, got mine.” He pressed his lips into a thin line and dipped his head into Dutch’s hand, raising his own to fold over it and hold it to his cheek, his expression softening to match Dutch’s. “But then I met you,” he whispered, a pained huff escaping his trembling lungs in the form of a laugh as his vision shimmered, finally clearing with a blink and the feeling of hot tears slipping down his cheeks. “I’ve lived for _thirty goddamn years,_ and the only one of ‘em I’m proud of is the one I’ve spent with _you.”_

Dutch’s eyes roamed over his face, searching, his lips parting slightly as the hand still on Hosea’s chest fisted more tightly into his shirt. Hosea moved his hand on the man’s jaw up to sink into the dark ocean of his hair, rubbing idly at his scalp, and Dutch shuddered as Hosea continued, “I still don’t believe in nothing, but I do believe in _you._ You…” He laughed and closed his eyes. “Goddamn you, you make me dream such soft, silly dreams.” He slowly turned his head and pressed a long kiss to Dutch’s palm, opening his eyes to catch the way the man’s pupils blew wide, and he both heard and felt Dutch hitch a breath. He wove his hand with Dutch’s, then, twining their fingers together before looking him dead in the eye, using his other hand to brush his curls back again. “You make me want to change.”

Dutch’s eyes widened a fraction and he opened his mouth, but Hosea hurried on before he could interrupt, "This whole time I've been trying to work myself up to leave you, because that's what I've always done, because every person I've ever run with has either died or left me or betrayed me or _I_ left _them_ before any of that could happen. And I was. I had my mind all made up about leaving first thing in the morning. Was of half a mind to leave while you were in the bath. But then you come in here and give me your spiel about all these things you see in me that I don't see myself like you've been harpin' on since the night we met, but _damn you,_ you make me want to _try._ You've always made me want to try. And you love me? Well. I've loved you for a _long_ while now. And the reason why I've been wanting to run away from _you_ so bad, Dutch, is because you're the first person who I would ever die for."

Silence hung between them, deep and heavy and rich with the weight of his confession, save only for the changed tempo of their breaths - Dutch's quickening under the implied threat, while Hosea's slowed, melting into the peace brought by unloading a weight from one's shoulders.

Hosea slowly traced Dutch's brow with his thumb, a tremor in his hand. "I've already lived one lifetime, and I ain't got nothing to show for it," he said, voice thick yet stern. "Nothing but whatever good I've managed to do with you. You're…" he huffed and smiled, ducking his head before pressing his forehead against Dutch's once more. "You're the better angel of my nature, Dutch. And I also think you're my second chance."

Dutch suddenly pulled their joined hands towards his chest, letting go to push Hosea's hand onto the hot skin over his heart, then used his other to cup the back of Hosea's head, threading his fingers through his pale blonde hair. "And you're my compass," he said, his voice cracking. "You make everything make sense. Hell, you make _me_ make sense. I'd be lost without you, and you- you give me my chance in the _first place."_

At those words, Hosea smiled, a bright and wide thing, as he slid out of the chair and into Dutch's lap, straddling his thighs as he hooked his chin over Dutch's shoulder and wrapped his arms around Dutch's chest, crushing him in a fierce embrace. "And that is why I'm _staying_." 

Dutch was stiff and silent for a long few seconds before huffing an incredulous laugh, twining his arms around Hosea's shoulders and burying his face in his hair. After a few more seconds, his shoulders started hitching, and Hosea heard small wet breaths above his ear. He closed his eyes and nuzzled into the crook of the man's neck - his partner's neck - and deeply inhaled, taking in all the woodsy sweet scents of him mixed with the fresh smell of soap, then stuck his nose further back into his curls to do the same as he glided his hands up and down the man's back.

"To think I almost lost this early," he murmured.

Dutch squeezed him tighter and pressed his lips to his hair. "You'll _never_ lose me."

Hosea grinned and shifted his head to nuzzle at the man's ear. "You and your impossible promises."

Dutch nuzzled at his temple. "You make the impossible possible.”

Hosea chuckled and ghosted a kiss at the base of his jaw. “And there you go with your romantic language again.”

Dutch slowly, gently eased Hosea back to look at his face, glowing more softly, warmly, and reverently than the warmest fireplace or the brightest star. “You make me romantic,” he said quietly, his brow pinching upwards in the ghost of his own puzzlement, and all at once the true weight of what that meant sank into Hosea’s stomach.

After a long beat, he swept his hands up over the hard muscled ridges and soft curves of Dutch’s torso to frame his neck in his hands, running his thumbs along the length of his jaw as he stared into the man’s eyes, willing his own to stop stinging quite so much as he looked pointedly down at the man’s mouth and parted his own lips. When he looked up into those brown eyes, they were lidded and pleading, moving ever so slightly in the subtle nod of Dutch’s head, so he leaned down and kissed him, slow and soft and sweet, gentle and shallow and lazy. The deep movements of Dutch’s chest against his own, the press of the man’s thighs at the inside of his, the feeling of his fingers dragging down his back over the fabric of- of _his_ shirt, made a thrumming river of heat flow up from his abdomen and through his heart to spiral through his head and pool down into his groin, bringing with it something buried from deep within his core, thawed from the permafrost that kept it dormant through all these years.

He reluctantly parted their lips and leaned back to look Dutch in the eye once more, shaking slightly. “And I-” he started before his voice died out, looking down at Dutch’s chest in a desperate attempt to gather as much strength as he could before the weight of his own vulnerability smothered his voice. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, pulled Dutch’s head firmly to press against his, and then drifted his eyelids open, determined to stare into Dutch’s soul in the rich pools of his oaken irises and the bottomless abysses of his blown pupils for what he was about to confess. “You make me… _desire_ you.”

Dutch stilled. His breathing shifted. His eyes widened. “You mean…”

Hosea slowly caressed his hand back to tangle his fingers into the curls at the nape of Dutch’s neck, nosing his cheekbone. “I’m swearing my life to you tonight, Dutch van der Linde,” he said, his voice low and warm and sure. “I’m giving you all of me. And I _want_ to give you all of me. And I-” his breathing got twice as heavy as he trailed his hand down to mold over the swell of Dutch’s pectoral, reverently working his nipple between his knuckles and making Dutch stiffen with a jolt and a sharp gasp “-I want all of you. And God, Dutch, you’re the first person I’ve ever _wanted.”_

Dutch’s hands slid down to cup his ass, holding him so that he was pressed even closer as his chest heaved and his eyes roamed. “Thought you didn’t sleep with folk you like? And that you didn’t want sex in general?” Dutch said softly, finally meeting his eyes again, that soft concerned crease in his brow once more.

“You’re different,” Hosea murmured. “You’re special. I _love you,_ first of all. And I do want it. As long as it’s with you.”

Dutch blinked - once, twice, thrice. Then, a wide beaming grin graced his face as his hands moved forward to wrap around his waist, his fingertips slowly digging into his ribs from where they were fanned out, making him feel lighter than air, and he marveled at how elated and _safe_ he felt framed in those hands, hands which he’d witnessed wield a gun with deadly precision and snap the binds of a rope with strength alone and shatter a man’s jaw who spat a slur at Hosea when he overheard him speaking Yiddish. Those same hands were also so gentle when they rubbed Empress’s nose, or held a frightened child’s hands to escort them back to their family, or massaged at Hosea’s chest and throat when his lungs seized up and swelled shut. He _trusted_ those hands. He trusted the man they were attached to. More than anything in the world.

“Dutch,” he said softly, feeling his mouth brighten into its own shining grin as he stared at the man taking him in like he was the night sky, and he shifted his hand on the man’s neck to gently clasp his ear, rubbing its shell reverently between his fingers, “will you lie with me tonight?”

Dutch was already nodding, a breathless laugh bubbling out of his chest before it finally broke through into deep warm laughter, and Hosea was struck with the thunderclap thought of _Oh, so this is the sound of home._ “My dear Hosea,” Dutch chuckled, slowly starting to vibrate under him, “I’ve longed for this since the night we met. It would be my _honor.”_

Hosea chuckled back at him, rubbing their noses together before capturing his mouth in a deep, exploring kiss, communicating all of his hunger in the incessant prying of his lips and urgent caress of his tongue, taking in Dutch’s taste and warmth and breath and then _noises_ with a slow rolling of his mouth, melding with Dutch’s own pushes and withdrawals in an effortless exchange of breath, a give and take as easy as the tide as they waded into those new, unknown waters. Dutch fell back slightly and caught himself on one hand, moving his other hand to the small of Hosea’s back to steady him, hitching a breath when Hosea’s weight settled on the hard bulge in his jeans, prompting him to flex his core and roll his hips up, lifting Hosea a half-foot into the air. Hosea was enjoying himself immensely and would have continued to do so had he not opened his eyes and spotted exactly how dangerously close those precious wild curls were to the flames.

In one smooth movement, he pushed himself upwards onto his feet and yanked Dutch forward and away from the fire, causing him to almost faceplant into the floor with a squawk. Hosea let out a ringing laugh from deep in his belly as he languidly backed up towards the bed, nimbly undoing the buttons of Dutch’s shirt around his front. “Don’t set yourself on fire, dumbass.”

“I _wasn’t,”_ Dutch whined at him, lifting his head to smirk at him and chastingly shake his head, only for the mirth on his face to melt into awe and hunger as Hosea shrugged off the shirt and tossed it aside, revealing his own toned torso with its fine sheet of platinum blonde hair, shining with its own gleam of lingering dampness and fresh sweat, reflecting the firelight.

“Sure,” Hosea chuckled, reaching down for his belt, undoing the buckle and slipping the leather out of Dutch’s belt loops, and by the time the leather slid out of the last loop, Dutch was there in front of him, nuzzling and kissing his jaw and wrapping his hands around the jut of Hosea’s hip-bones where they’d been bared by the downward slide of his pants, immobilizing them as he pressed their groins together once more through the barriers of their jeans, both barely concealing the swell of their cocks. Hosea let his belt fall to the floor with a clatter as he tilted his head, baring his neck to Dutch in a silent invitation that Dutch gladly accepted, latching his mouth onto Hosea’s neck to mouth at and scrape his teeth along his pulse.

It wasn’t the first time Hosea experienced that particular sensation. But it _was_ the first time his brain nearly whited out in simple, earnest pleasure instead of trying to recoil in on itself, and the _liberation_ of that phenomena made a deep moan ring through his chest and out of his throat like the blaring notes that fell the cold hard walls of Jericho.

He remembered himself a second later, of course, and snapped his jaw shut with a click, sweeping his hands up to urgently scratch at the nape of Dutch’s neck and haul on his hair, snapping the man’s head back with a hoarse shout and roll of his hips. Hosea pecked him on the cheek and pressed their faces together once more, sending them swaying uneasily on their feet as they dissolved into wheezy, giggly laughter, like a couple of schoolboys behind a barn.

“We should both make a greater effort to be _quiet,”_ he whispered, jerking his head towards the door. “The folk here don't seem to be too fond of us already."

"Let them hear," Dutch said with a smirk.

Hosea chastisingly pinched the man's nipple, sending him flinching backwards with a sharp gasp and a shudder. "Save your social challenges for another time," Hosea said softly. "I just wanna worry about _you_ tonight."

Dutch's expression softened from its impish glint, and he drifted back in, pressing his forehead to his as he lifted a hand to cup his jaw. "And I just wanna worry about _you._ I know how much this means.”

“No you don’t,” Hosea breathed, trailing a hand down Dutch’s side.

Dutch’s breathing slowed down from its rapid, eager panting to match the slow and purposeful pace of Hosea’s hand gliding down his ribs and over his hip, letting Hosea gently rain on the inferno that sprung up between them, slowing them down and reining him in, easing back their momentum until there was no risk of them getting ahead of themselves. With a reverent caress over Hosea’s cheek, Dutch chastely kissed Hosea on the lips before sliding his head along Hosea’s brow to nuzzle their temples together. “...You’re right,” he acquiesced, his voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t.”

Hosea pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth and then molded himself to the man’s front, twining his arms around his waist as he felt Dutch’s hands cradle the small of his back and the back of his head, the both of them tucking their noses into the crook of each other’s necks as they simply embraced each other for a long minute. 

“I want to take this slow,” he said, his voice low and smooth and resolute. “There’s no rush. We have the rest of our lives to indulge in this. But this night… I want to savor tonight.”

He felt Dutch clench his jaw against his shoulder. He shifted his hand to briefly splay his hand out over the man’s spine, pressing down gently as he ghosted his lips over Dutch’s neck. A tremor ran through Dutch’s frame, and after another long minute, Dutch managed, voice brittle and uncertain, “Part of me is still afraid you’ll leave.”

Hosea gently chuckled. “You want me to promise?”

Dutch breathed in a gentle breath and leaned away, holding Hosea steady to stare into his eyes. “Yes.”

Hosea blinked, and slowly, his weak attempts at mirth slid off of his face. “I _promise..._ For as long as you’ll have me, Dutch, I’m yours,” he declared, voice as strong and resolute as he could make it. With slow, careful movements, he raised his hands to frame Dutch’s face. “...Are you mine?” he asked hesitantly.

The creases in Dutch’s brow smoothed out all at once, and the uncertain shadows that had pooled in his eyes drifted away, giving way to warm reverent light like the sun emerging from behind a cloud. “I will _always_ be yours,” Dutch answered, his voice warmer and sweeter than cherry wine in the summer.

The corners of Hosea’s eyes crinkled, and he moved back in to share yet another slow, gentle kiss with Dutch, the both of them closing their eyes as they focused solely on tasting each other, on breathing, interspersing it with brief pecks on the lips before melding together again with soft sighs. Eventually, Hosea came up for a proper breath, holding Dutch at bay with the press of his forehead and incline of his chin. “How do we want to do this?” he asked warmly.

“Do what?” Dutch asked instantly, sounding slightly dazed, and Hosea giggled.

“Well, I suppose we could just cuddle and kiss all night-” he began.

 _“No,”_ Dutch said emphatically, his eyes blowing wide as he tightened his grip on Hosea and shifted his stance, “God no- I mean- That’s _fine,_ but- God, Hosea, I- I want to _know you._ As much as you’re willing to share with me.”

Hosea held Dutch's gaze, then gave a small, testing tug, gently attempting to pull out of Dutch's grasp; Dutch's hold tightened for a second, his muscles twitching like he wanted to pull Hosea back into him, but then the next second, he let go - allowing Hosea to step back and away.

The heat pooled in his gut flared like the sun, warm and brilliant, as he took Dutch in, standing tall and open and earnest beside that bed, wide eyes watching him with a precariously balanced vulnerability that made Hosea want to earn every ounce of unshakeable trust Dutch for some reason deigned to show a conman.

“I have an idea,” Hosea said softly.

Dutch slowly licked his lips and swallowed. “Oh?”

Hosea lifted his chin and reached for the button of his jeans, undoing it with a gentle gesture along with the zipper, allowing them to fall to the floor for him to fling aside with a quick gesture of his foot. Dutch’s eyes immediately snapped down to the hard length of his cock arcing out of his golden fluff for a long few moments before twitching down his slimly muscled legs and flitting back up to his eyes, diving down to his cock again, then jerking back up to his gaze, his chest heaving. Hosea lifted a leg to plant his knee on the mattress, then said, “How about I lie down, and you just… explore me?”

Dutch swallowed thickly, then let out a heavy breath. “Yeah,” he rasped, then nodded, his voice becoming more sure. “Yeah, that’s- that’s- yeah. Let’s. Yes.”

Hosea giggled again and proceeded to crawl onto the mattress, gently rolling onto his back and nestling his head in the pillows. “Well? I’m waiting on you, cowboy!”

Dutch shucked off his jeans in one harsh motion, then more reverently removed his gold necklace to set on the night-stand, before _pouncing_ upon the mattress, making it bounce and sending them both flying a couple inches upwards with a deep creak of springs and dual rings of laughter. When the mattress finally settled, Dutch crawled over him and bracketed his head with his arms, sinking down to kiss him once more in unsuccessful flutters of lips and the clacking of teeth as they both continued laughing, eventually resolving to simply rub their noses against each other.

Finally, their laughter died down, Dutch pulled back, and after a long beat, he breathed, "Wow."

Hosea smirked. "Flatterer."

Dutch firmly shook his head and nuzzled along his jaw, tucking his nose into the hollow below his ear to rumble, "I never… imagined I could have you like this."

A breath punched its way out of Hosea's lungs, and his hands raised to gently rest on Dutch's ribs. "And I never thought I'd _want_ to be _had_ by anyone, yet look where we are."

Dutch clenched his jaw and pushed himself even further back to take in Hosea's form below him, open and laid out and ready for him, shivering ever-so-slightly by a mixture of the cold and his own arousal. "Look where _you_ are," he said gently. He dashed down to steal a kiss, then kissed down the length of his jaw, up over his temple and forehead and then down his other side, ending on his lips again. "I…" he slowly panted, looking as breathless as Hosea felt as he lifted a hand to slowly start caressing down his neck and shoulder and pectoral, thumbing his nipple. That anxious crease deepened as Hosea stiffened with a soft gasp, arcing up into his touch, and Dutch shifted his attention to stare at his chest, his smile falling and shifting into one he wore when confronting something he didn't understand.

Hosea gently sank back down into the mattress and reached his hands up into that unruly mop of curls, massaging at the man's scalp with gentle, firm circles - Dutch let out a soft noise and relaxed slightly, his eyes growing lidded, but the uneasy furrow of his brow and downward arc of his mouth remained, accompanied by a distinctive flush climbing up his neck. Hosea furrowed his own brow and leaned up to press their foreheads together. "What's wrong?" he whispered.

Dutch pressed his lips into a thin line and shook his head. "It's nothing," he murmured, dodging Hosea's gaze to kiss at his neck instead. 

_"No,"_ Hosea said firmly, dragging Dutch up by the hair to meet his eyes, making the man's entire body stiffen with a gasp, and he noted and filed away in the back of his mind that it made Dutch's spine arch. "If we're not both being fully communicative with each other I'm stopping this whole thing right now. _Dutch,_ dear. What's on your mind?"

Dutch finally looked up at him, his frown growing deeper. "I'm not sure I've earned this," he said quietly.

Hosea snorted softly, cupping his best friend's jaw. "You have. Case closed. Next?"

Dutch slowly eased himself down to lie at his side, propped up on an elbow so that he was draped half on top of him, using an arm to hold Hosea close as Dutch rested his forehead in the crook of Hosea's neck. "You know all those times I've flirted with you? Tried to get you to lie with me before?"

"Oh, I _remember,"_ Hosea drawled. "It was hard to miss. You had more chutzpah than the average bachelor after a few drinks."

"Yeah, well," Dutch said quietly. The arm holding Hosea flexed, just slightly. "It was all bluster. Because I've never… Hosea, I've never been with a man before."

There was a beat.

Hosea blinked and stiffened. The motion immediately set Dutch off, making him sit up fully and lean back on his heels, his expression twisting. "Hosea, you're the only man I…" he shook his head. "You're the only _person_ I've ever loved and the only man I've ever wanted this way, and I've lain with a lot of women but I never _made love,_ and I want to make this night special for you and make you feel good and make love with you, but I don't-" his hand became clawed and stiff, gesturing down the length of Hosea's body "-know _how."_

Hosea blinked again, slowly pushing himself up on his elbows, his brow pinching tightly upwards. "You've never been with a man before?" he parroted, voice dull and flat.

Dutch fell even deeper into the rut he seemed to be falling in at that, shuttering up as he looked away towards the windows and the glimpses of billowing snow through the cracks in the curtains, the howling wind outside making the building shift and groan. "I never thought you'd… actually say yes." He shuddered. "Sorry to disappoint," he muttered, voice carrying the hard, cold edge of a rising wall as he began to shift to get off the bed.

Hosea lunged forward and snatched his wrist, making Dutch freeze and look down at him, his expression immediately snapping open again in shock, and Hosea used that precious window in Dutch's defenses to say, "Dutch, how on Earth is this a condemnation of _you_ and not _me?"_

Dutch settled down, squinting at Hosea in bewilderment. "How could this possibly be a condemnation of _you?"_ he asked sharply. _“I’m_ the one coming up short, here.”

“You’re not ‘coming up short’ of _anything,”_ Hosea hissed. Then, all at once, his expression fell as he let go of Dutch’s wrist with a single apologetic caress. “What I’m stuck on, Dutch, is…” He took a deep breath and deflated, pushing himself upright to look Dutch in the eye and shake his head slightly. “I’m a hell of a man to have your first time with.”

Dutch’s gaze slowly danced down his front before swirling back up to meet his gaze. “Oh you’re a hell of a man all right,” he rumbled, and _damn him,_ Hosea’s mouth twitched upwards.

“Shtek nit dem kop tsum volf in moyl arayn,” he muttered under his breath, sinking his gaze down to the mattress.

Dutch shifted closer and folded a hand over his knee, squeezing gently. “What does that mean?” he asked, swiping a thumb through Hosea’s leg hair.

Hosea huffed a mirthless laugh. “It means ‘don’t stick your head in the mouth of a wolf.’”

Dutch’s voice grew harder. “And what’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

Hosea kept staring furiously at the mattress. “It means I ain’t sure I’m the best man to… to be that for you.”

Dutch tilted his chin up with a finger, and their gazes met once more. “And why not?” Dutch demanded. 

Hosea lifted his gaze to the ceiling instead. “Because I built my experience on manipulating folk and breaking their trust.”

“Hosea… look at me.”

Hosea clenched his jaw.

He heard Dutch’s breathing shift, deepening like it was about to let out a yell or a growl, but then it shifted once more, flowing into something softer, and when he next heard Dutch’s voice, it was as gentle as the touch of his hand curling around the side of his throat. “My love… mijn schat… look at me.”

Something broke in Hosea’s chest, and suddenly he was staring into Dutch’s eyes, locked onto him as sure and steady as that man could be.

“Hosea,” Dutch repeated, softly, caressing his pulse with his thumb. “Do you intend to hurt me?”

 _“No,”_ Hosea said immediately.

"Do you _want_ to hurt me?"

"Never."

"Are you going to leave me after this?"

His heart twinged. "No," he said softly.

"I _trust_ you, Hosea," Dutch declared, staring him down. "And you've earned that trust a thousand times over. So why can’t you trust _yourself?”_

Hosea was suddenly filled with a burning _need_ to touch and be close to that impossible man - with outstretched hands, he pulled himself into Dutch’s embrace, pressing a long kiss to his shoulder as he felt Dutch nuzzle into his hair. “Do you have any idea how special you are to me?” Hosea murmured into his skin after a long moment.

“I’d like to hope I do.”

“How much I am giving to you tonight?”

He felt Dutch nod.

“And do you genuinely believe that I’m a good man?”

Dutch’s hold tightened. “I _do.”_

“Then riddle me this, zeeskeit, why would you think I would reject you or judge you for not having carnal knowledge of men at just the age of _twenty?_ Or hell, _sixty_ for that matter? Do you truly believe I give a damn?”

Dutch shifted, uncomfortable, wilting slightly. “N-No…”

Hosea pressed another kiss to his shoulder, then another to his neck, breathing him in before pressing a heavy kiss to his temple and meeting his eye. “What has you afraid, dear?”

Dutch frowned, tensing in Hosea’s hands, his flush returning. “I don’t want to…” His nose wrinkled, his gaze sinking down to Hosea’s cheekbone. “I don’t want… to be some bumbling fool who falls short of some previous lover.” A dark shadow passed over his face, reminiscent of when he challenged men to duels. 

It struck Hosea, then, exactly how much of an idiot he’d fallen in love with.

He huffed and shook his head, a toothy smirk playing at his lips. “You know, back in my day-” Dutch snorted softly and rolled his eyes “-I’ve had some pretty good lays. Came so hard I blacked out a few times. But I’ve never made love either, zeeskeit. That’s exclusive to you. And no night of passion I’ve had before can hold a candle to sitting next to you discussing Lincoln’s inaugural address.”

A warm, bubbly laugh grew out of Dutch’s chest before Hosea was even done talking. _“Hold on,_ there’s a lot to unpack there - blacking out? Your fanciful tales are getting easier to catch, Old Girl.”

Hosea arced a delicate eyebrow. “...You’ve never come so hard you’ve blacked out before?”

Dutch blinked. His grin sagged a little. “Wait, that’s a real thing?”

Hosea’s lips rolled into an intensely thin line in a desperate attempt to hide his wide, wolfish smile as he reached up to frame Dutch’s face in his hands. His voice carried a slight chuckle in it as he reverently drawled, “Oh, I have _so_ many things to show you.”

A sudden prickle of tears filled his eyes at the thought - that such things, that his knowledge, felt like gifts worth sharing instead of tools in a belt.

A soft and gentle light filled Dutch’s face as the man stared at him, the corners of his eyes all crinkled up as he slowly crawled into Hosea’s lap, pressing the long heavy length of his cock against Hosea’s thigh and rolling his hips, opening his mouth to let out a low note of pleasure and capture Hosea’s lips in his, swallowing down Hosea’s soft gasp. When he pulled back, panting slightly, he murmured, “What does ‘zeeskeit’ mean?”

Hosea giggled softly and nuzzled his jaw. “It means ‘sweetness.’” Dutch huffed, and Hosea quickly smothered any possible protest by kissing the man’s eyelids. “What does ‘schat’ mean?” he countered.

Dutch stole another kiss. “It means… love, or dear, or darling. Literally it means ‘treasure.’”

Hosea hummed, rubbing their noses together and arcing his spine to rub his own cock against Dutch’s soft inner thigh, pulling the man closer by the small of his back, making them both gasp as their foreheads gently fell together. “Well… zeeskeit… what say you we go back to where we were?”

Dutch hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Will you tell me what you want?”

Hosea laughed, soft warm notes that rolled out of his chest in gentle waves. _"Yes,"_ he soothed, "I'll tell you what to do."

Dutch narrowed his eyes a fraction. "I was trying not to word it like that."

In one swift movement, Hosea threw himself down onto the mattress and pulled Dutch down to crash on top of him, cinching his shoulders in a tight embrace before saying, "Swallow your pride and _touch me."_

Dutch didn't need to be told twice. With a gentle headbutt that got them both giggling, he shifted to straddle Hosea’s left leg and started eagerly caressing and kissing every inch of him he could reach - trailing his hands down from Hosea’s mussed blonde locks over his jaw and down his shoulders as his mouth worked at his neck, eliciting soft breathless notes as Hosea canted his hips up. Dutch followed his hands down the length of Hosea’s arms with his mouth, pressing a trail of heavy kisses all the way down until he planted one in the palm of each hand, then swept his hands up and down the sides of his ribs where they barely peeked out as shadows across his skin, mouthing around each modest ridge of his pectorals before sucking each nipple between his teeth - Hosea moaned through his clenched jaw and threw his head back as he canted his hips up once more - and then trailing his mouth down the middle of his abdomen, lavishing his tongue along the hardened muscles of his core, defined as clearly as a washboard. A smirk played on Hosea’s lips when Dutch lingered there for a little while, sitting up so that he could smooth his hands over the bumps and dips of his abs with wide eyes and a hungry grin, before leaning down again to swipe his hands down his toned thighs and press a kiss to each hip bone. Dutch’s pace slowed once he reached Hosea’s fluff, pressing a slow kiss into the hair before hesitating entirely over his cock, his muscles tensing slightly. Hosea soothed a reassuring hand through Dutch’s hair and the man let out a soft sigh, pushing up against his palm for a moment before resolving to kiss down the length of each leg, ending with a heavy kiss to the top of each foot.

“F-Fuck,” Hosea gasped, continuing to cant his hips up as Dutch crawled back up towards his face with his eyes blown wide and desperate, and he opened his mouth to say something when all at once Dutch dove down and kissed him, prying his lips apart and licking into him with a sharp broken whine, wrapping a hand around his hip and grinding his cock against Hosea’s thigh. Hosea grunted into Dutch’s mouth at the feeling of his own painfully hard and leaking cock knocking against Dutch’s stomach each time the man ground downwards, and he bucked his hips up in return, flying his hands up to squeeze Dutch’s biceps, digging his fingertips into hard muscle. He allowed their frantic grinding and breathless kissing to go on for a few seconds more before rapidly tapping Dutch on the shoulder, working his forearm between them to shove him off.

Dutch stiffened and shot off of him like a spring, blinking and shaking his head, wheezing, “Huh? Wha-? Y’okay?”

Hosea snorted. _“Slow down,_ cowboy. And I'm fine, I just don’t want either of us to crush our dicks.”

Dutch blinked and nodded slightly. “O-Okay.”

“How about this?” Hosea prompted softly, reaching forward to gently curl his hand around Dutch’s wrist and give it a gentle, testing tug. Dutch looked down at their hands and then back up at his eyes, giving a slight nod before relaxing his arm. At Dutch’s assent, Hosea slowly, gently guided his hand to his cock, curling the man’s fingers around its length, and at the connection of skin against sensitive skin, both of their breaths hitched. 

Dutch lowered his gaze and fixed his full attention on Hosea’s cock, his pupils growing slightly wider in the dim light as he swiped his thumb over the head, wiping away a bead of pre-come and eliciting a gasp from Hosea’s chest, his core constricting. Dutch slowly licked his lips as he continued to stare, then swallowed, and Hosea felt a tingle shoot through him as his cock twitched in Dutch’s hand, wondering what that mouth would feel like stretched around it.

Something for another time, he thought, reverently easing his hand away from its gentle hold over Dutch’s to glide up over his wrist to his forearm, caressing up and down his arm hair. Dutch’s eyes glanced up to his, and at Hosea’s slight nod, Dutch slowly eased his hand down Hosea's length, shifting his fingers around it to get a feel for it, tightening his grip in wary, testing squeezes as he dragged it back up. Hosea let his pleased sigh be a bit louder than it would be normally, and he was rewarded for his efforts with a small smile gracing Dutch's face.

“I’m assuming- uh-” Dutch dragged in a shuddered breath “-it’s the same as- as touching myself?”

Hosea huffed a laugh. “Yes, love.”

Dutch gave a low grunt, moving his hand faster and more sure, rapidly speeding up to a brutal pace that had Hosea gritting his teeth and clamping his fingers deep into the flesh of Dutch’s arm, forcing it to still. “Maybe-” he hissed, feeling his arousal sharply dip off a ledge onto a plateau, “-lick your palm first and go slower. I don’t like it quite that fast.”

Dutch swallowed again and slowly nodded, his flush climbing higher into his cheeks as he lifted his hand and licked his palm, his brow furrowing once more and pinching upwards. Hosea soothingly rubbed at his arm hair again and raised his other hand to brush the man’s curls out of his face, softening his voice to say, “You’re doing good. We have the whole rest of our lives to learn each other.”

Dutch’s expression instantly softened at the reminder, and it was with a gentle and slow reverence that he took Hosea in hand again, bending down to press a kiss to his hip bone before returning his attention to his cock once more, settling into a slow, lazy rhythm eased by his spit-slick hand. Hosea eased his head back onto the pillows again, sighing, “That’s it… _God,_ Dutch, that’s it…”

After a minute of Dutch’s slow ministrations, interspersed with experimental squeezes and twists of his wrist that elicited either no reaction or got Hosea to jerk his hips up, Hosea turned his head to take in the intensely focused expression on Dutch’s face and laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this quiet. It’s a bit spooky.”

Dutch blinked out of his trance and glanced at him, snorting a laugh. “Forgive me for trying my _best_ over here. It’s weird when I can’t feel if something’s good or not.”

Hosea snickered and pulled up a leg to knock his ankle against Dutch’s ribs. “This is supposed to be _fun,_ you know, and you’re over there lookin’ like you’re taking a math test.”

“Well,” Dutch chuffed, leaning back onto his heels to free his other hand so that he could wrap it around his own length, squeezing it tightly with a grunt and buck of his hips, “I must admit I ain’t exactly having… the most ‘fun’ I _could_ be having.”

 _“Oh,”_ Hosea scoffed, clicking his tongue, “am I neglecting my boy so?”

Dutch’s eyes widened slightly at that, snapping over to lock with his gaze as his body gave a faint shiver. After a long moment, Dutch lifted his chin and drawled, “I reckon you _are.”_

“Aww,” Hosea cooed, pushing himself upright into a sitting position, reaching out to cradle Dutch’s face in his hands and draw it to his, requesting entry to Dutch’s mouth with a gentle suggestion of his lips and thanking the man for opening his mouth by licking into it with all the sweetest motions he was capable of, relishing in the low hum he drew out of Dutch’s chest before he slipped a hand back to tug on his hair, turning the hum into a shout. Keeping his firm hold on Dutch’s curls, he parted their lips and peppered kisses over Dutch’s cheek before drawing back to ask, “How about I give you some attention now, hmm?”

Dutch shivered again, letting go of both their cocks in exchange for holding Hosea’s hips. _“Please.”_

Hosea nuzzled at the side of Dutch’s face, massaging at his scalp with one hand while trailing his nails down his ribs with the other, pressing himself closer into a near embrace before whispering, “Think you can lie on your back for me?”

Dutch nodded quickly and hurried to throw himself down onto the mattress, taking Hosea’s place stretched out over the covers, spreading his legs to give him easier access to his cock. Hosea chuckled at his eagerness, reverently cradling the knowledge that Dutch seemed to always want to jump straight into immediate gratification in bed. It was so very like him - the man had the patience of a starving dog, whether it be for cracking a safe or hunting a deer or, apparently, for getting his dick wet.

But lord, was he ever a sight. Hosea had always admired the man for his physique - even before that long-dormant pool of heat in his core reflected his image - and frequently took him in with an appreciative eye whenever they bathed together, admiring his barreled chest and soft yet strong middle, the sturdy tree trunkness of his legs and rippled landscape of his back. His cock, however, was something he was never privy to - never _allowed_ himself to be privy to, always glossing his gaze politely over it even when Dutch did things such as prostrating himself against a rock with one too many glances in his direction for it to be coincidental. 

Now, however, he got to see it up close and personal, safe and in private, able to take it in with an eye beyond the simple aesthetic appreciation of an artist - for there, in that room, on that bed, it was a sight bared and trusted only to him. 

“My, you’re gorgeous,” he breathed, trailing his fingertips down its modest length as it twitched before wrapping his hand around its base, getting a feel for its wide girth as the thick dark hair of the man’s fluff tickled his knuckles. Its color was deep and flushed, and it felt hard as a rock where it strained in Hosea’s hand, a couple veins risen up and showing along its sides as its handsome head shined with pre-come. “Look at you. Just look at you. So hard for me.” A low, tortured noise rumbled up from Dutch’s throat that shot all of Hosea’s nerves singing, and Hosea looked up at him with a grin. “Oh? Do you like that? Hearing how handsome and good you are?”

“Sh-Shit,” Dutch croaked. “Pl- Please keep talking.”

Hosea’s grin grew even wider as he swiped his thumb over the head of Dutch’s cock, then pushed in its tip at the base of its head, making Dutch let out a sharp note and roll his hips up. After licking his lips, Hosea drawled, “Do you remember the night we met…?”

Dutch shook his head slightly and blearily blinked at him. After a beat, a bright smile flickered onto his face. “Only every day.”

Hosea ducked his chin slightly, and with one last caress over Dutch’s slit to make the man grunt and buck once more, he lowered his hands to start languidly caressing up and down the dark hair of his inner thighs. When Dutch jerked his head up and huffed at him for removing his hands from his cock, he smirked and said, “Oh, je suis désolé. Voulez-vous quelque chose, monsieur?”

Dutch’s eyes blew wide and he barked a laugh before slamming his head back into the pillows and clapping. “Oh, god, you’re doing your french bit again!”

Hosea batted his eyes. “‘French bit?’ Je crains de ne pas comprendre.”

Dutch only started laughing harder. “I have no idea what the shit you’re saying.”

Hosea settled down lower over Dutch’s cock and started kneading his thighs, dropping his voice down into something deep and husky as he said, “Devez-vous savoir ce que ça veut dire quand je dis ‘Vous êtes plus beau que dix milliards couchers de soleil’?”

Dutch shivered and started canting his hips up, his laughter rapidly dissolving into breathless panting. “Still don’t know what that means, but I like your tone.”

Hosea caught Dutch’s eyes in his gaze and held onto them as he slowly, languidly crawled up the length of his body in a sensual drag of skin against skin, his compact yet hardened muscles rippling with the effort to not give Dutch too much contact, until he finally stilled, hovering over Dutch on all fours, casting a shadow over his flushed face as he slowly lowered his head to press their foreheads together, marveling at how Dutch’s eyes shined even in shadow. “Vos yeux contiennent les étoiles,” he breathed.

Dutch’s jaw dropped open wider as he strained his head up towards Hosea’s, settling his hands onto his back. “Say something else,” he panted.

Hosea slowly licked his lips to disguise a wolfish smirk as a devilish idea flitted into his head like a small bird. Slowly, oh so slowly, he nuzzled down the side of Dutch’s face until he was hovering over the man’s ear. He let the tension hang in the air for a long few seconds before rumbling, _“Fromage.”_

Dutch tossed his head back with a lewd moan, and Hosea snapped.

With a slow wheeze that started deep in his diaphragm and exponentially built up into a loud series of snorts that turned into squeaks that turned into giggles that turned into cackles, Hosea collapsed into Dutch’s chest and buried his face in between his pecs, clutching desperately at the man’s ribs before sucking in a desperate croaking breath to fuel more cackles. Dutch tensed underneath him, then slowly started wheezing right along with him, vibrating into hysterical laughter as he reached up to clutch at Hosea’s shoulders and buried his face in his hair, letting out loud ringing baritone notes from his belly that warbled off the walls. A sudden sharp pounding on the wall of the neighboring room and a muffled sharp yell of anger made them both freeze and snap silent, but it only took them meeting each other’s gaze again to dissolve into hysterics once more, even louder than before, clinging to each other and rolling around on the mattress.

After who knew how long - time had become meaningless in that room, save only for the promise of infinity wrapped around them both - they finally stilled, Dutch falling back onto his back with Hosea landing on top of him, the both of them heaving for breath with the barest remnants of leftover giggles. Dutch grabbed Hosea’s face and guided it up to look at him, and when their eyes met this time, it wasn’t an explosion of pure earnest joy and sweet simple mirth - but rather a _connection,_ deep and true, seeing into the very most depths of each other’s souls, shining so brightly that they’d combined into one light, their heartbeats pounding in each other’s chests in perfect harmony, an effortless call and return, the both of them playing the same melody.

Hosea looked down at Dutch, feeling his smile fall on his face at the same time as the man he loved, not out of any sadness or melancholy, but because he could no longer keep up the energy to sustain it, so focused was he staring into that man’s eyes, into his face, basking in the light radiating at him more brilliantly than all the light the sun and the stars had to offer, and it was as he stared down at his partner, his best friend, his lover, he realized that this man was his guiding star. He realized that _Dutch van der Linde…_ was _home._

Tears pooled in Dutch’s eyes and began leaking down his cheeks as surely as the sweat running down his temples, and Hosea marveled at the sacred sight as droplets from his own eyes dripped onto the man’s face. The heat in his core called out, begging for release and union with the man below him, so with one last huff of laughter, he nuzzled his face against his love’s and breathed, “Zeeskeit, do you want to try something with me?”

“Anything,” Dutch answered immediately, the word cracking in his throat.

Gently taking Dutch’s right hand, Hosea pulled it up to his mouth and dragged his tongue across its palm, then quickly sucked each finger into his mouth - Dutch gasped and shuddered below him - before wrapping his hand around it again and guiding it down to where their cocks arched towards each other between their legs. He shifted and pressed himself closer to Dutch, gently encouraging Dutch to angle himself towards him with his other hand, then guided Dutch’s hand to gently brush against both of their cocks. He looked back up into Dutch’s eyes, waiting until the man blinked away more tears and nodded quickly, then nuzzled his cheek as, together, they took both of their cocks in hand, in one grasp, encasing them in damp heat as they both gasped against each other.

After a few long seconds to adjust, Hosea mashed his forehead against Dutch’s before breathing, “We can buck our hips or stay still or any combination thereof. You just keep that grip and find a pace between that first and last pace you tried on me. Does that sound nice, sweetheart?”

Dutch swallowed thickly and nodded, his eyes closed.

“Dear, I need to hear you say it,” he coaxed, pressing a kiss to the corner of his eye.

 _“Yes,”_ Dutch wheezed, sucking in a breath and opening his eyes, lolling his head towards Hosea, his gaze shining with lust.

Hosea smiled. “Here we go.”

With a roll of his hips, he pushed down deeper into their hands, shivering at the feeling of his cock sliding against Dutch’s, and Dutch hitched a breath in answer, bucking his own hips upwards in return. The two of them slowly fumbled their way into a rhythm, taking turns going too fast or too slow for a few minutes, until finally they fell into sync in a rhythm that worked for both of them. Hosea’s pleasure sang and built into a glorious crescendo, shot only higher with each deep noise of joy and ecstasy that rang out of Dutch’s throat, a litany of moans and mewls and whimpers and shouts that Hosea loathed having to muffle with a kiss or answer with a desperate _“Shh,”_ always soothed with a following “You’re doing _great,_ darling, _so good,_ sweetheart.”

Soon enough, Dutch’s noises grew quiet and sweet, choked back and locked in his throat or let out far quieter, and with each vocalization Hosea got to hear he pressed a desperate kiss to whatever part of Dutch’s face was closest, nuzzling his nose at the corners of his eyes to wipe away his tears and into that gorgeous messy mop of raven curls that he hoped to have in his life forever. He felt Dutch’s free hand ghost through his own sun-touched hair before curling around the nape of his neck, then shivered as Dutch chanted, “I love you, I love you, God I love you, schat, Hosea, I-”

“I know,” he whispered, shooting his left hand up and away from Dutch’s to answer his burning need to hold Dutch’s head, molding his hand around his jaw and sinking his fingers into his hair, holding him like he was the most precious and priceless treasure on Earth as he fiercely kissed his cheek. “I love you _too.”_

__

“‘Sea,” Dutch panted, planting a kiss of his own to Hosea’s chin, “m’close.”

“So am I,” Hosea croaked, shuddering and pressing himself even closer to Dutch as he ground down into the man’s hand and against his cock. “I- I- God- The sheets-”

Dutch huffed a laugh. “You’re- concerned ‘b-bout the  _ sheets?” _

“We gotta  _ sleep in ‘em,” _ Hosea borderline whined. He pressed another kiss to Dutch’s eyelid as the man mewled, then urgently said, “Dutch I wanna try something.”

“You w-wanna try a l-lotta things,” Dutch teased.

Hosea mashed their foreheads together and purposefully stilled his hips before saying, “Dutch, I want you to come in my mouth so I can swallow it.”

As predicted, Dutch let out a deep, broken moan and bucked up hard enough to dislodge Hosea from his hips. He crashed back down to the mattress with a shudder, dragging Hosea close by the nape of his neck to bury his face in his throat before moaning, “Yeah. Yeah.  _ Yes. Please. _ Fuck.”

Hosea grinned and giggled and shakily got up to his hands and knees, pressing a kiss to Dutch’s forehead before saying, “I’m trusting you not to buck and hurt me, okay?”

Dutch’s eyes snapped open at that and fixed on him immediately. He heaved in a deep, shuddered breath, then shut his mouth with a click, nodding firmly. “I  _ won’t,” _ he swore.

“Thank you,” Hosea drawled, pecking him once on the lips before starting his journey downwards, feeling the corners of his eyes crinkle at how Dutch drew his knees up so he’d have less leverage to move his hips. He settled down between Dutch’s shivering thighs and bent low to replace Dutch’s hand at the base of his cock with his own, then hovered his mouth over the head and opened his jaw. He hesitated when he felt Dutch’s hands fist into his hair and glanced up at the man, meeting his wide-eyed and reverent gaze to say, “Please don’t hold my head down, either, all right?”

Dutch immediately removed his hands from his hair and fisted them into the blanket instead, nodding firmly. “I won’t,” he repeated, and the sound of his voice was the sweetest, most comforting song.

“Okay,” Hosea breathed, “here we go.” And with that, he opened his jaw again and sank down, sealing his mouth around his partner’s cock before pulling it back up slightly with the firm drag of tongue and teeth, suckling at its head before sliding his lips back down, hollowing his cheeks as he dragged it back up again, molding his lips around the head of his cock, swiping the tip of his tongue over the slit.

And that was all it took. With a window-rattling bellow that would ensure they’d get kicked out in the morning if not sooner, Dutch came and shot his seed into Hosea’s mouth, flooding his senses with a warm and salty taste reminiscent of shellfish which he let fill his mouth entirely, using his hand to slowly drag up Dutch’s cock and pump it while using his other to cup his lover’s pulsing balls, making sure he captured every single drop. When Dutch’s cock finally stopped twitching, he made a show of looking up through his eyelashes to spy Dutch shiveringly collapse back to the mattress where he’d arched his spine, only to tilt his head down and make eye contact with Hosea right as Hosea swallowed his load with an audible gulp.

Not wasting any time as Dutch let out a noise somewhere between a whimper and a gurgle, he crawled back up to Dutch’s face where the man was staring at him, wall-eyed, and breathed “Do you want to know what you taste like?”

Dutch’s mouth popped open as he nodded, and the next second Hosea was licking into him, threading his hand into his curls as their tongues slid together, and another long chain of deep, broken noises rumbled out of Dutch’s chest as he took his own taste from Hosea’s mouth, dragging his nails down Hosea’s back and hooking a leg over his ass to pull him as close as possible as his chest heaved for breath and his muscles shivered and spasmed.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute before Hosea’s brain became almost completely submerged in white-hot  _ need  _ screaming at him for release, hypersensitive to every touch and noise of the man underneath him, so with great reluctance he broke their kiss to pant, “Dutch- need- want- on chest?!” interspersed with desperate, needy kisses to his jaw.

Dutch dragged in a huge gulp of air and managed,  _ “Ja!” _

With a thankful whine, Hosea straddled Dutch’s waist and grabbed his own cock, wedging it down between Dutch’s chest and his palm before bowing his spine and bracing himself on his free arm; he frantically stroked himself and gently rutted against Dutch’s muscles, shuddering and whimpering, sucking in a sharp gasp when he felt Dutch’s hands sweep up to cradle his ass and knead it as he worked. Dutch’s voice floored him out of nowhere when the man reverently rambled, “Mooi. Je bent prachtig. Je dick voelt echt lekker. Mijn schat.  _ Mijn Hosea. _ Goed, ga door zo!  _ Kom op!” _

With one last deep, growled whine and grind of his hips, he finished and came in a long string of white-hot pulses, shooting his own seed across the expanse of Dutch’s chest, painting his pectorals and the hollow of his throat in glistening white. 

When his vision finally stopped swimming and his mind slowly sank back down from its single soaring high note, floating in buzzing soup, he groggily blinked down at Dutch as he still cradled his aftershock-adled cock, his arms and legs trembling like leaves in the wind, and smiled. Dutch was staring back and forth between his chest and Hosea’s face, his eyes still blown wide and shining with both tears and something else that Hosea was too overwhelmed to name, his hands soothing up and down Hosea’s lower back. Dutch’s lips slowly pulled up into a small, earnest smile that mirrored Hosea’s, and then, with an impish glint in his eye, he pulled in a hand to slowly drag it through a line of Hosea’s seed, looked Hosea dead in the eye, and put it in his mouth. Hosea felt both his eyes blow wide and his jaw drop as he watched Dutch suck his seed off of his own fingers, laving his tongue between them and sealing his reddened lips around his knuckles.

“...Wanna know what you taste like?” Dutch rasped.

With a bright grin and incredulous laugh, Hosea fondly shook his head before giving a firm nod, letting Dutch’s other hand guide him down by the nape of his neck into a deep kiss, and when Dutch licked into his mouth, he tasted a sensation vaguely similar to salted green apples.

They parted their kiss when Hosea’s arm shook out from under him, forcing him to collapse into Dutch’s chest and his own spend. Dutch wheezed a laugh and nuzzled his face into his hair, wrapping his arms around his chest, and Hosea chuckled warmly as he melted into Dutch’s embrace and nuzzled the underside of his jaw, using his arms and legs to encase Dutch in an embrace of his own.

“That was…” Dutch wheezed, still sounding breathless. “...the best sex I’ve ever had.”

Hosea hummed. “Flatterer.”

“Cut the shit, Hosea, really, you- god  _ damn.” _

Hosea closed his eyes and smiled even warmer, burrowing his head into Dutch’s neck. “There’s a lot more where that came from.”

“Is that a promise?” Dutch stuttered, squirming a little.

Hosea giggled. “Yes, zeeskeit. That’s a promise.” He hummed again when Dutch pressed a kiss to his hair. “What was all that Dutch you were speaking earlier? I caught ‘schat’ and my name.”

“Just me singing your praises.”

“Mm. Well, you sing very sweet, even when I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“What was all the French you were saying earlier?”

Hosea broke into giggles before Dutch even finished talking.

Dutch shook his head against Hosea’s hair. “What the hell did you  _ say, _ Old Girl~?” he drawled, his tone scolding and playful.

Hosea smothered his giggles and managed, “Well the last one was just ‘cheese.’”

Dutch rumbled out a deep belly-laugh, and Hosea’s giggles only sharpened when Dutch smacked his ass.

“You devilish conman,” Dutch growled, only half-heartedly, dissolving into chuckles. “Can we agree to try and ramble praise at each other in English from now on so we can fully enjoy it? And so I don’t make a fool out of myself, since you are far too much of a cunning fox to not take every chance to  _ make fun of me?” _

_ “I have to, _ sweet thing, someone’s gotta take you down a peg,” Hosea drawled.

“Yeah, well,” Dutch gruffed, his tone settling down into one of soft reverence as he tightened his hold on Hosea, burying his face further into his hair. His voice shook a little when he next spoke. “...I’m glad you’ll be here to do so.”

Hosea’s brow gently knit as he pressed a long, reverent kiss to the side of Dutch’s throat. “I’m glad, too,” he said softly.  _ And someone’s gotta lift me up _ . “...I should find something to clean us up with.”

“Let me,” Dutch murmured, pressing one last kiss to the top of his head. “You stay here.” 

Hosea lifted his head, Dutch looked down, and the both of them shared a soft smile. “Of course,” Hosea said softly.

They ended that night, clean and warm under the fine sheets of a nice bed for the first time in their partnership, falling asleep curled into each other’s arms with their legs tangled together, lulled into dreams by the soft sounds of each other’s breath and the softness of their skin pushed flush against the other. Hosea fell asleep the fastest he ever had in his life, and when he awoke, it wasn’t with the sunrise like he always did; rather, the sun’s light was beating down through the windows from high in the sky, reflected and brightened by the thick casing of snow on the ground and around all the buildings, slipping into their room in a brilliant white-gold glow. The first thing that Hosea’s eyes focused on was Dutch’s face, still laying lack and asleep beside him even under the full attention of the sun’s light, his expression smooth and at peace where he lay in Hosea’s arms, his hair pooled around his head in wild dark spirals.

It was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen in his life.

He felt he had no choice but to lean forward and ghost his lips over that warm, sun-caressed skin, to press heavy, gentle kisses to the corner of his eye and over his beauty-mark, before nuzzling his temple and tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. Slowly, oh-so-slowly, he eased himself out from around the man and got dressed, grabbing his saddle-bags to take to the wash-room with him, then slipped out the door.

When he returned, his saddle-bags slung over his shoulder and holding two cups of coffee from the saloon downstairs, Dutch was sitting up in bed, pale and wide-eyed and panting, looking around with a glassy gaze. When his eyes finally fell on Hosea, he froze and stiffened, then seemed to relax all at once, letting out a jittery sigh as he ran a hand over his face.

Hosea frowned as he shut the door with his hip. “I made a promise,” he said quietly.

Dutch nodded and huffed out a breath. His voice was tight as he said, “I know you did. And I trust you. I just.” He shuddered.

Hosea let out a quiet sigh as he walked towards him and perched himself on the bed, handing him the coffee. Dutch took it with a silent, thankful nod as Hosea set aside his saddle-bags and blew on his own mug. “You know,” Hosea mused, easing his tone into something light and playful, “I still don’t know how the hell you lasted four years alone.”

“I wasn’t alone. Not really,” Dutch muttered, shrugging. “Not for more than a month, at least. I always fell into bed with  _ someone.” _ He side-eyed him with a twinkle in his eye. “There was only one feller worth running with, though.”

Hosea took a sip. “You fell in love with a fella who tried to kill you, huh?”

Dutch slowly smiled. “And you threw away twenty-nine years of bullshit pessimist ‘lone wolf’ philosophy for me and my pretty face.”

“It  _ is  _ quite pretty,” Hosea mused with a smirk, watching Dutch take a sip and then light up, discovering that it was just the way he liked it.

Dutch rolled the coffee around in his mouth and then turned to look at him fully, straightening his spine into a proud and radiant posture. “Hard to believe you spent the past year and half of yesterday planning on leaving me, huh?”

The corners of Hosea’s eyes crinkled, and he hummed around his mug. “Der mentsh trakht un got lakht.”

Dutch quirked an eyebrow and swallowed his mouthful. “What does that mean?”

Hosea’s smirk grew wider. “‘Man plans; God laughs.’”

Dutch’s other eyebrow rose to match its twin, and he opened his mouth to reply-

-~-~-

“-and it’s about  _ damn time!” _

Dutch’s booming voice came with a wall of freezing wind that blew in from the open cabin door, howling and moaning like the souls of the dead through the rough wood to slam into the back of Hosea, raking claws across the back of his neck and his cheeks and stealing his breath along with the steam of his coffee, shattering its calming spirals into tortured clouds that swiftly got destroyed as his lungs seized and convulsed, sending him into a fit of rattling wet coughs as he hacked into his sleeve, the fire in front of him trembling and shrinking back, sucking the warm light out of the room to replace it with blinding pale white setting his surroundings into hyperfocus, the weight of twenty-five years washing away the memories to reveal the harsh reality of Colter once more.

Through the corner of his eye as he continued to harshly cough into his coat, he spied Dutch walk in with Molly on his arm, and the two cast him a brief worried glance before Molly stepped around to Dutch’s front, taking his hands in hers and looking up to stare into his eyes. “You did it, my love. We’re just about to leave,  _ with money. _ You got us through this, just like you said.”

Dutch made a low, morose rumble from deep in his chest as Hosea finally managed to breathe again in slow wheezing pants. “Not yet I haven’t,” he murmured, throwing Hosea another glance.

“But I  _ know  _ you will,” Molly said gently, batting her eyes up at him and beaming him a smile. Dutch looked down at her and sighed, offering her a smile in return. Molly parted her lips and closed her eyes, and Dutch answered by leaning down and giving her a firm kiss on the lips, squeezing her waist. Hosea averted his eyes and leaned over his coffee, letting its steam further soothe his lungs.

When Dutch pulled back, he gently ushered Molly towards their room, saying, “Go ahead and gather up all your things and put them in a wagon for tomorrow. We’re leaving at first light!”

Molly nodded and practically pranced off to their room, looking back over her shoulder with a radiant, glowing smile that Hosea was deeply familiar with, having worn it plenty of times himself. 

How many years had it been now since he stopped?

“How ya doin’, old friend?” Dutch asked with a heavy sigh, leaning against the fireplace mantle. 

Hosea sniffed and looked up at him, feeling his expression settle into a sad frown. He had to think in order to breathe, a long line of pain trailed from his lungs through his throat, his lower left leg felt like it was being electrocuted, his joints felt like they were being pried apart with a butterknife, and his bad knee felt like it’d been snapped backwards. “Fine.” He cased his eyes over the shadows in Dutch’s face. “How are you?”

Dutch entirely glossed over the question to ask “Did you ever send someone to bury Mr. Adler?”

Hosea nodded his head. “Sent Bill down that way. He’s trustworthy enough despite being the village idiot, and he could handle himself if there were O’Driscolls still lurking about.”

Dutch inclined his head. “Good. Now, I want you to make the rounds around camp, make sure everyone’s accounted for and there’s no loose ends. I want you bringing up our rear, make sure we don’t miss something.”

Hosea shifted in his chair and wet his lips. “Well, I wanted to visit Davey’s and Jenny’s graves-”

Dutch’s expression hardened as a dark shadow filled his eyes, his nose wrinkling ever so slightly as a muscle in his jaw ticced. “There’s no need for that. We’re almost outta here, Hosea, we need to be lookin’  _ forward  _ now. I need you keepin’ everyone in line, not out in the wilds by yourself gettin’ sicker than you already are.”

A muscle in Hosea’s own jaw ticced as he sat back in his chair, lifting his chin. “Can’t move forward while remembering our dead, hm?”

Dutch put a hand on his hip and narrowed his eyes. “‘Course we can remember our dead. We’ve been doin’ nothin’  _ but  _ rememberin’ our dead, we don’t need graves for that, and I don’t need to be rememberin’  _ you. _ I need you working. You  _ ain’t  _ ridin’ out.”

The sight of Molly appearing in the doorway of Dutch's room with an armful of her things made Hosea lower his hackles with a sigh. She looked over at Dutch and asked, “A ghrá, can you carry my clothes chest?”

“In a minute,” Dutch snapped.

Molly pursed her lips and averted her eyes, glancing once between the two men before holding her tongue and slipping out the door.

“What’ll  _ you  _ be doing?” Hosea asked mildly.

Dutch turned his head to stare at nothing in particular, his eyes flicking around to look at unseen tasks. “I need to organize and arrange the scouting parties to ride out ahead, take another look at your notes on our map about where we’re going, round up all our money and recount it, try and redo our books.”

“Sounds like a headache,” he said gently, watching the steam of his coffee reform into its gentle, lazy spirals, floating up to obscure Dutch’s face. “Dutch, why don’t you sit down for a minute?”

“We got things to do,” Dutch replied, his voice hard, still not looking at him.

“Rest your legs. Rest your mind. Come on, indulge me.” He firmly patted the chair next to him. “Sit with me.”

Dutch kept staring off into space.

“Look at me,” he said softly, his mouth opening again to say any number of endearments before he bit them back and closed his mouth.

Dutch slowly turned his head to look at him with a tight frown, and when his eyes met Hosea’s, a single brick of his impenetrable fortress crumbled. The tension in his face slowly bled out as he almost sulkingly walked across the floor to the chair beside Hosea and sat down, leaning forward with his hands clasped between his knees. 

“Slow down just for a minute,” Hosea said, scooting his boot across the floor to knock against Dutch’s. “You can afford a minute.”

Dutch’s gaze drifted down to the floor as he slowly caressed his thumb over his knuckles. He was more tense than a drawn bowstring.

“How are you doing?” Hosea repeated, caressing his own thumb around the rim of his mug.

Dutch tilted his head one way, then another, his expression relaxing a little more. “I’m just… doing what I have to,” he said quietly, voice barely above a whisper.

Hosea sighed. “Still dodgin’ my question.” Dutch narrowed his eyes at the ground, and he rushed to stop Dutch from sealing up the hole in his defenses. “You’ve been through a lot.”

That got a gusty huff to wheeze out of Dutch’s chest, and the man’s expression fully relaxed as he continued to stare at the fireplace, sinking into something somber. "Don't coddle me."

"Since when have I ever coddled you?” Hosea deadpanned.

The briefest, weakest smile flickered across Dutch's face before getting extinguished. "Got me there."

Hosea relaxed back in his chair and crossed his ankles, turning his head to stare into the fire alongside his life-partner. Silence settled over and between them both, save only for the snapping of the fire and the howling of the wind, the both of them gently swaddled in shadow and warm firelight, briefly sheltered and hidden away from the world outside.

“Do you ever think about… the way things were before?” Dutch asked quietly. Hosea looked over at him.

__

“Sometimes it seems like the only thing I ever do these days,” Hosea murmured.

He wondered, not for the first time, when he started associating Dutch more with shadows than with light.

Over the course of the past decades, as the world changed around them, they changed, too. Things got harder. Then easier. Then harder again. They’d been gifted with the light of wonderful, beautiful souls to add to their lives, only to watch half get ripped away and snuffed out. Hosea opened his heart fully to that ever-growing throng of people they added to their family, and hurt all the more for it, fracturing more and more in a grand spiderweb of exhaustion and grief like a pane of glass, becoming so strained some dark and terrible days he’d long for the moment he’d shatter and fall away from the world, left only with the chant that the remaining lights in his life were worth getting up for in the morning to convince him to keep opening his eyes. Dutch, on the other hand…  _ hardened, _ as surely as he lost the soft fat in his face and his middle in exchange for gauntness, stress-lines, wrinkles, and scars. 

Hosea once thought that  _ he  _ dealt with death horribly, but Dutch always bore far deeper cracks in his core with each loss, something inside him snapping like a tree collapsing in a forest. Even beyond death, there was the strain, the stress, the anger and fear and pain that came with the suffering of their loved ones. When Dutch let himself feel, and feel  _ fully, _ the pain of another, the man always seemed to become obsessed with  _ fixing it, _ and if he couldn’t fix it - which he rarely if ever could - he tried to take it into himself, like he could baptize his failure to be a protector away in his own blood. At some point, as Hosea opened himself to that pain more and more, exposing himself as a pillar so that he could hold their family up, Dutch began closing himself off, laying out the foundation of a fortress around himself, cut off from the others. Somewhere along the way, Dutch seemed to stop radiating light and instead seemed to swallow it. His soul, the engine at the heart of their family that they all chose to follow and let power them through the world, became carved out and hollow, demanding more and more fuel in an ever-rising hunger that steadily climbed towards infinity, blowing smoke to obscure his failures and fears.

Dutch clenched his jaw. “I try my best not to.” He caressed his thumbs over his knuckles a few more times. “I’m trying everything I can not to live in the past. I feel like you’re proof enough of why that’s a bad idea, with all your maudlin.”

Hosea hummed softly and caressed the rim of his coffee again. “I like to think it reminds me of what truly matters.”

Dutch side-eyed him. “As long as you don’t forget to stay with me in the present.”

Hosea turned to look at him full-on. “If I have any choice in the matter, I’ll always stay with you.”

Dutch looked away from him again and made a low note. “You haven’t made it seem that way lately.”

Hosea uncrossed his legs. “Speak plainly, Dutch.”

“You’ve been angry with me.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want me to coddle you.”

Dutch sat up straight and turned to fix him with a glare. “I don’t, but I  _ need  _ you on my  _ side, _ my  _ friend.” _

Hosea kept his expression soft and open and his voice gentle as he answered, “As opposed to what other side?”

Dutch’s eyes widened slightly at that, and his lips parted as his brow pinched upwards. All at once, the defensive tension eased out of his back once more, and he looked down at the floor, rubbing at his arm. “Hosea…” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “...do you have my back?”

Hosea stared at the man for a long moment.

Then, he leaned over and extended his cup of coffee towards him, using his other hand to gently curl around Dutch’s wrists and guide his hands to fold around the mug. Dutch looked up at him in confusion, searching his face as his brow furrowed. “What- what are you doing? What is this?”

“It’s  _ just a coffee, _ my dear Dutch, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hosea drawled, his voice warm and full of fond reverence as he smiled at his life-partner. Dutch immediately snapped his eyes to the side, unseeing, searching his head for a memory as Hosea stood up. “Rest up a bit and drink. It’ll tell you your answer. Now if you’ll excuse me, I got things to do.”

With heavy pats to Dutch’s shoulder ending on a warm caress, he made his way towards the front of the cabin door, pulling his coat tighter around his front and clearing his throat. When he put his hand on the doorknob, he looked over his shoulder at the man one last time.

He saw it when Dutch made the connection, finding the memory at last, prompting all the tension to fall off of him as his wrinkles smoothed out in his face, and when he looked up and met Hosea’s eyes, his expression was softer than it’d been in years, and his face shone out - ever so slightly, ever so faintly - with light.

Hosea inclined his head, and Dutch raised his mug in a silent cheer, and the two stared at each other for a long few seconds more before Dutch looked down at the coffee to start his own reminiscing, and Hosea walked out the door and into the cold.

Maybe, just maybe... everything would be all right.

**Author's Note:**

> [🎵](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-NVUMjUUcs)
> 
> **French translations:**  
>  _“Oh, je suis désolé. Voulez-vous quelque chose, monsieur?”_ = "Oh, I'm sorry. Do you want anything, sir?"  
>  _“‘French bit?’ Je crains de ne pas comprendre.”_ = "'French bit?' I'm afraid I don't understand."  
>  _“Devez-vous pour savoir ce que ça veut dire quand je dis ‘Vous êtes plus beau que dix milliards couchers de soleil’?”_ = "Do you need to know what it means when I say 'You are more beautiful than ten billion sunsets'?"  
>  _“Vos yeux contiennent les étoiles,”_ = "Your eyes contain the stars."  
>  _"Fromage."_ = "Cheese."
> 
>  **Dutch translations:**  
>  _"Ja!"_ = "Yes!"  
>  _“Mooi. Je bent prachtig. Je dick voelt echt lekker. Mijn schat. Mijn Hosea. Goed, ga door zo! Kom op!”_ = "Beautiful. You're beautiful. Your dick feels really good. My treasure. My Hosea. Good, keep going! Come on!"


End file.
